Gh. Kim et al., Application of photosensitive polyimides as alignment layer to optical switching devices of a nematic liquid crystal, LIQ CRYST, 28(2), 2001, pp. 271-277
We have explored the change in alignment of a nematic liquid crystal, 4'-pe
ntyl-4-cyanobiphenyl (5CB) with three types of photosensitive polyimide as
the alignment layer by photoirradiation at 366 nm. The photosensitive polyi
mide alignment layer induced a reversible change in alignment of 5CB. It wa
s observed that the 5CB molecules became aligned from homogeneous alignment
to homeotropic on photoirradiation with a d.c. electric field as a bias, a
nd reversed to the homogeneous state when photoirradiation was ceased. This
result indicates that optical switching could be repeated by on and off sw
itching of the excitation light at 366 nm. The optical switching of the nem
atic liquid crystal might be mainly due to a photophysical change in the po
lyimide surface which is affected by the chemical structures of the polyimi
des at the temperature at which 5CB exhibits a nematic phase. The optical s
witching of nematic liquid crystals with photosensitive polyimides as the a
lignment layer is a novel driving method for nematic liquid crystals.