A series of soluble conjugated ligands TT, FT, PT, and NT that contained terpyridyl terminal units were synthesized by Heck coupling. These ligands absorbed at 341-434 nm and emitted blue-green light, with maximum at 440-522 nm and photoluminescence quantum yields of 0.15-0.71 in solution. The double-layer electroluminescent devices with the configuration of ITO/PEDOT/ligand FT, PT, or NT/Ca/Al exhibited a brightness of 43-63 cd/m(2). These ligands were further reacted with zinc(II) and ruthenium(II) ions and subsequent anion exchange to afford linear and supramolecular complexes. The photophysics of these complexes were investigated. A significant redshift of the emission maximum of the Zn complexes relative to the corresponding ligands was observed. The Ru complexes were used to fabricate photovoltaic devices with the structure ITO/PEDOT/Ru complex/P3HT:PCBM (1:1 wt/wt)/Ca/Al. The power conversion efficiency of these polymer-fullerene bulk heterojunction photovoltaic devices was up to 0.71%. (C) 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 46:7702-7712,2008