Synthesis and characterisation of fully aromatic lactamimide-containing polyesters

Three novel aromatic naphthalene-lactamimide monomers were synthesised and polymerised via high temperature transesterification in melt to produce ful ly aromatic lactamimide-containing polyesters. Molecular modelling of the s ynthesised polymers showed that they should possess better solubility compa red to the respective polyimides due to the more flexible polymer chain. So me of the synthesised polymers are soluble in chloroform and show medium mo lecular weight. Polymers were found to be rather thermostable exhibiting T- 10 up to 510 degrees C. Aromatic polylactamimides did not show strong photo emission, probably due to Loose-Bolt quenching, however, the third order no n-linear optical susceptibilities of the polymers were up to 9.1 x 10(-11) esu, which is 5 times that of polylactamimides bearing aliphatic substituen ts and comparable with those of polydiacetylenes, polyanilines and polythio phenes known for their non-linear optical properties.