Twelve imidazole based Y-shaped push–pullchromophores have been designed, synthesised and fully characterised featuring 4,5-bis(N,N-dimethylanilino)imidazole as a donor moiety, a systematically enlarged π-linker and nitro and cyano groups as acceptors. The synthesised push–pull systems have been studied by electrochemistry, UV/Vis and IR spectroscopy and nonlinearoptical properties have been calculated