In this talk, we will introduce a novel photo-alignment material that has been specifically developed for use in liquid crystal optical devices. These materials contain molecules that have at least one anchoring group and one α,β-unsaturated carbonyl group. These groups can include derivatives of carboxylic acid, amides, nitriles, or ketones. When these materials are dip-washed onto the substrate surface of the transparent electrode, such as an ITO layer, the anchoring group, in this case, phosphonic acid, forms a single molecular self-assembled layer. Excellent LC alignment was achieved by these alignment layers when exposed to linearly polarized light.
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