Abstract: A cationic bolaform amphiphile which had two double-bonds and could be polymerized by ultraviolet was synthesized. A layer-by-layer self-assembled film was prepared in aqueous solution by using this material and poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate). The UV-Vis spectra proved that the multilayers film was uniform. When polarized UV irradiated the film, the photosensitive double bond could be polymerized via [2+2] cycloaddition, and the production of reaction distributed along the polarized direction of incident UV. So that by this method an anisotropic film was prepared, we used this anisotropic film as alignment layer of nematic liquid crystals, and obtained a uniform and stable alignment result.

Key words: Self-assembled film, Layer-by-layer(LBL), Liquid crystals, Photoalignment, Polarized ultraviolet