Fabrication of freely patterned aligned nematic liquid crystal cells using UV laser scanning photoalignment

We have fabricated freely patterned aligned liquid crystal (LC) cells using photoalignment. Our apparatus has a sample stage and a UV Ar+ laser with a nonlinear optical crystal, and can provide arbitrary orientations of polarized UV light at any point on a substrate. In this paper we describe the fabrication method for the cells and the various patterns of aligned LC cells that can be produced within the resolution limitations of our apparatus. This study shows possible applications of photoalignment for the fabrication of photonic devices.