Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the preparation process of a flexible high-resolution patterned polarizer. (a) Photoalignment layer is spin-coated onto a quartz substrate. (b) Regions of the photoalignment layer are aligned using laser writing. (c) Liquid crystal precursor is spin-coated on top of SD1. (d) Spin-coated AD1s solution; (e) spin-coated PDMS; (f) flexible patterned polarizer.

Fig. 2. Photograph of a mixture film of liquid crystal and azo dye observed between a pair of crossed polarizers. (a) Before UV curing and (b) after UV curing. The physical picture of the polarizer when the polarization direction of the analyzed polarizer is (c) 0° and (d) 90°. The arrow indicates the direction of polarization of the analyzed polarizer. (e) Surface topography of the AD1 thin film with a thickness of 700 nm; the RMS of the roughness in a 2 µm × 2 µm area is 0.205 nm. (f) Cross-sectional SEM image of the polarizer on a glass substrate.

Fig. 3. (a) Extinction ratio test equipment for the dichroic-oriented polarizer. (b) Transmitted light intensity dependence on the rotation angle of the analyzing polarizer shows an extinction ratio of 336:1 for the aligned AD1, as indicated by the blue diamonds, with solid lines representing the cos² fit. (c) Extinction ratio of polarizer versus number of LCP layers.

Fig. 4. Polarized optical microscope image of azo dye film on (a) one LCP layer; (b) two LCP layers; (c) three LCP layers; (d) four LCP layers; (e) five LCP layers; (f) six LCP layers, respectively. Scale bar, 100 µm.

Fig. 5. Microphotographs of the fabricated grating-structured polarizing film magnified 100 times, with (a) 0°, (b) 45°, (c) 90°, (d) 135° linear polarizer on top; scale bar, 2 µm. The yellow double arrows show the molecular orientation of the azo dye, and the black double arrows show the orientation of the analytical polarizer. Microphotographs of the fabricated checkerboard-structured polarizing film, with (e) 0° and (f) 90° linear polarizer on top.

Fig. 6. Image of patterned AD1 on the bendable LCP film with (a) 0°, (b) 90°linear polarizer on top. (c) Normalized extinction ratio of the flexible polarizer versus the number of bending cycles at a radius of 1 mm, and the folding angle ranges from 180° AD1 (illustration on the left) to 0° (illustration on the right). The gray line represents the best fit.