The absorption, fluorescence excitation and emission spectroscopy, and time-dependent spectrofluorimetry have been used to study the photophysics of copolymers of N-vinylcarbazole with different monomers like vinyl acetate, methyl acrylate, methyl methacrylate, butyl acrylate, and butyl methacrylate in dichloromethane. In all the copolymers and at different N-vinylcarbazole content, the absorption spectra reflect only the monomer carbazole units. The two kinds of excited monomer species of N-vinylcarbazole are present in S, state. Short-lived (similar to 3 ns) excited monomer decays forming low energy excimer obtained by the complete overlap of the excited carbazole monomer. The long-lived excited monomer (similar to 8 ns) decays to ground state without formation of any excimer. The high energy excimer is relatively short-lived and is formed by the partial overlap of the carbazole units. The presence of bulky group in the copolymer chain hinders the formation of excimers. (c) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.