抄録
It was found that vertical alignment of discotic liquid crystals (DLC) was strongly depending on steric effect (exclusive volume effect) of side chain substituents of alignment layer at DLC/substrate interfaces. We also developed a novel alignment promoter that has remarkable ability to align DLC vertically at DLC/air interfaces. It is not miscible with DLC and it proved selectively to deposit in the vicinity of DLC/air interfaces. By controlling molecular orientation at the both interfaces in this way, the monodomain vertical alignment of DLC has been accomplished without any optical alignment defects through a simple coating method. The alignment of the molecules was able to fix by photopolymerization, therefore a novel optically anisotropic film was produced.
