Study on the realtionship between phthalic and naphthalenic polyimide structures and the photo-induced molecular orientaion of liquid crystals on polyimides

Polarized ultraviolet irradiation techniques have been developed recently to produce alignment of liquid crystals (LC). Because of the excellent thermal stability and the alignment ablility of polyimides, polyimides has attracted considerable research interest for the photoinduced alignment layer. Hasegawa and Taira confirmed homogeneous alignment of LC by the decompostion of a polyimide induced by lineraly ultra-violet polarized light. It was reported that ultraviolet visible absorption spectra of a polyimide alignment film showed a remarkable change upon irradiation. In this study, we synthesized phthalic polyimide and a naphthalenic polyimide in order to investigate the effect of the polyimide structure. Some difference in terms of the photo-induced molecular orientaion of liquid crystals were observed with the polyimide structure.