Liquid Crystal Alignment on the Multiple Photo-treated Layers by the Interfered Laser Light

Orientational alignment patterns have been proven to be that they are very useful for realizing diverse properties of liquid crystals. Here we produced the patterns combining interfered laser beams. A photo-isomerizable polymer including azo unit, which induces nematic liquid crystal alignment to the polarized laser light, was used as the alignment to layer. Double irradiations into two orthogonal directions brought the orientation patterns similar to the checkerboard. It indicates the possibility of bistability on those patterns.