A series of new aryl-Schiff base derivatives were synthetized from the one-pot approach: two component condensation reaction in absence of solvent, in quantitative yields with a high atom economy under green conditions. All of the derivatives were fully characterized by NMR, vibrational absorption analysis, UV/vis absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy, and high-resolution mass spectrometry. The aryl-Schiff bases predominantly present the enol-imine tautomer in acetone-d6, while both enol-imine and keto-imine tautomer readily concur in dimethyl sulphoxide-d6. The emission of the series could be tailored by substituting electron donor or electron acceptor groups in the aryl-Schiff bases from fluorescent to not fluorescent molecules, respectively. Fluorescent molecules emit blue, cyan and yellow color with quantum yields in the 2.4–6.2 % range and average lifetime of ∼0.2 ns. The large Stokes’ shift for the molecule bearing a methylalcoxy (3248 cm−1) and diethyl amine (5017 cm−1) suggests a possible intramolecular charge transfer process as also corroborated by cyclic voltammetry, and explaining their low fluorescence quantum yield. The aryl-Schiff base substituted with the methylalcoxy (2b) was used as an electron donor material in photovoltaic devices in configuration: ITO/PEDOT:PSS/2b:PC61BM/Fields metal. The device built under atmospheric conditions displayed an intrinsic power conversion efficiency of PCE ∼0.4 %, with a Voc of 420 mV and Jsc 4.28 mA/cm2.