Alignment of a nematic liquid crystal induced by anisotropic photo-oxidation of photosensitive polyimide films

Abstract

The alignment of a nematic liquid crystal (LC) could be induced by three polyimide (PI) films exposed to linearly polarized ultraviolet (UV) light of long wavelength (366 nm). The alignment could also be modified by changing the direction of polarization of the linearly polarized light (LPL). Infrared (IR) and UV-visible spectroscopy indicated that among the three PI films the PI with a benzophenone moiety and the PI with a diphenyl methane moiety were sensitive to UV radiation and susceptible to remarkable ablation after irradiation with LPL in air. Polarized UV-visible spectroscopy indicated that dichroism of the PI films was caused by LPL and altered by changing the polarization of the LPL. Furthermore, the PI films irradiated under vacuum showed little reduction in intensity of IR bands, which is in sharp contrast to the marked decreases in samples irradiated in atmospheres containing oxygen. This proves that oxygen is necessary to the ablative process of the PI films. Our results indicate that the mechanism of LC alignment on the photosensitive PI films is photoinduced anisotropic oxidative ablation of the PI films. In contrast, the PI film with a diphenyl ether moiety was quite stable under similar irradiation conditions even though the irradiated PI film could also induce alignment of the LC molecules.