A series of novel conjugated poly(aryleneethynylene)s (PAEs) co-containing BODIPY have been synthesized and characterized, and their third-order nonlinear optical properties were studied using the Z-scan technique. Interestingly, by introducing the BODIPY skeleton into the PAE backbone, the polymers showed that their nonlinear optical properties were dependent on the BODIPY component. From poly-4 to poly-1, the third-order nonlinear optical properties of the polymers enhanced regularly with the increase of the BODIPY component of the copolymers, indicating that the BODIPY component played decisive roles in enhancing the nonlinear optical properties. (C) 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 46: 7401-7410,2008