Rare-earth polymer complexes are promising new materials for luminescence and display applications because they combine both the advantages of rare-earth and polymer

but their optical properties are often degraded because of the poor solubility of rare-earth complex in polymer.In this paper

two rare-earth containing complex

europium octanoate and Eu (DBM)

3

(phen)

were synthesized first

and then were mixed separately with PMMA using physical and chemical methods.Thus two new kinds of rare-earth containing polymers were synthesized.The optical properties of the two materials were investigated.The emission intensity of PMMA-Eu(DBM)

3

(phen) is more than one order higher than that of PMMA-Eu(OA)

3

.The emission from PMMA-Eu(DBM)

3

(phen) is only due to Eu

3+

:

5

D

0

→

7

F

2

transition

while the emission from PMMA-Eu(OA)

3

contains not only the transitions from Eu

3+

:

5

D

0

→

7

F

2

but also transtions from other

5

D levels to

7

F

2

which implied that the emission from PMMA-Eu(DBM)

3

(phen) showed better color purity.Thus

PMMA-Eu (DBM)

3

(phen) may be a promising new optical material.Our results also implies that a non-centrosymmetrical conformation for rare-earth complex and a strong energy transfer between rare-earth ion and ligands are essential for a high optical performance of rare-earth containing polymer.