Photoalignment possesses obvious advantages in comparison with the usually “rubbing” treatment of the substrates of liquid crystal display(LCD)cells.Possible benefits for using these techniques include:(i)elimination of electrostatic charges and impurities as well as mechanical damage of the surface;(ii)a controllable pretilt angle and anchoring energy of the liquid crystal cell,as well as its high thermo and UV stability and ionic purity;(iii)new advanced applications of LC in fiber communications,optical data processing,holography and other fields,where the traditional rubbing LC alignment is not possible due to the sophisticated geometry of LC cell and/or high spatial resolution of the processing system;(iv)ability for efficient LC alignment on curved and flexible substrates;(v)manufacturing of new optical elements for LC technology,such as patterned polarizers and phase retarders,tunable optical filters,polarization non-sensitive optical lenses,with voltage controllable focal distance etc.