In this paper, a new series of PVK-based nonlinear optical (NLO) polymers were successfully synthesized, in which different isolation moieties (from the small to large size) were bonded to the NLO chromophore moieties. All the polymers were well characterized, and the obtained results demonstrated that the polymers exhibited improved solubility and processibility, and good optical transparency upon the introduction of the isolation groups, in addition to the enhanced NLO effects, further confirming that the linkage of isolation groups will not only boost the NLO properties of the resultant polymers to possibly high values, but also improve their processibility during the device manipulation process. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.