Plasmonic Photopatterning of Complex Molecular Orientations in Liquid Crystals

Aligning liquid crystal (LC) molecules in spatially non-uniform patterns are highly demanded for applications such as programmable origami and liquid crystal enabled nonlinear electrokinetics. We developed a high resolution projection photoalignment technique for patterning arbitrary LC alignment fields. The photoalignment is based on carefully engineered metasurfaces, or dubbed as plasmonic metamasks (PMMs). When illuminated by light, the PMMs generate patterns of both light intensity and polarization. By projecting the light transmitted through the PMMs onto liquid crystal cells coated with photosensitive materials, alignment patterns predesigned in polarization patterns of the PMMs can be imposed in liquid crystals. This technique makes the liquid crystal alignment a repeatable and scalable process similar to conventional photolithography, promising various applications.