Abstract Unwanted bleaching of two-photon absorption microscopy probes can be reduced by designing more efficient nonlinear fluorophores. Here the linear and nonlinear photophysical properties of unsaturated oxazolones are studied. A set of push–pull oxazolone derivatives have been designed by substituting the 2-phenyl-4-benzylidene-1, 3- oxazol-5-one unit in two different positions with a combination of electron donor ( ...