The rubbing supplemented atmospheric plasma process for tunable liquid crystal alignment

▶ Atmospheric plasma processing by itself provides insufficient uniformity of liquid crystal alignment on macroscopic scale. ▶ The alignment can be radically improved by combination of plasma processing with rubbing or other process providing high surface anisotropy. ▶ The homeotropic-to-planar anchoring transition observed with the increasing of exposure dose is caused by destruction of hydrophobic chains on the treated surface resulting in increase of surface free energy.