As eries of new b-ketoimines containing af errocene moiety and their BF 2 complexes have been synthesized and structurally characterized. The solvatochromism of the b-ketoimines was studied, putting in evidencearedshift with increasing solvent polarity.T his positive solvatochromism can be attributed to am ore polarizede xcited state compared with the grounds tate, due to intramolecular charge transfer( ICT) transitions. The b-ketoimines exhibited weak emission, attributable to the excited-state intramolecular proton transfer( ESIPT) phenomenon. This ESIPT effect is suppressedu ponr estriction of the keto-enaminet automerism, inducedu pon addition of BF 3 •OEt 2 ,w hich afforded the related BF 2 complexes, characterized by an enhancement of the fluorescence through the ICT effect. Both the b-ketoimines and BF 2 complexes exhibited significant aggregation-inducede mission behavior in mixtureso fC H 3 CN/H 2 O, due to restriction of intramolecular rotationint he aggregated state. The frontier molecular orbital levels,g round-and excitedstate dipole moments (m g and m e ), and the origin of electronic absorption spectra were studied by time-dependent DFT calculations. The second-order nonlinearo ptical (NLO) properties were determined by the electric-field-induced secondharmonic generation technique. The mb 1907 values of the bketoimines increased upon the formationo ft he related BF 2 complexes,m ainly due to an enhancement of the groundstate dipole moment. The resultsp resented here reveal that some of these novel compounds are excellent multifunctional candidates for NLO and luminescence applications.