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Liquid crystal (LC) orientation films are one of the key technologies in display devices. Currently, the commonly used polyimide rubbing method exposes problems such as micro‐defects and static electricity. In this paper, a thin film was prepared from a mixture of UV‐curable polymer and NiO solution using the UV‐NIL method. At room temperature, all three temperatures showed good liquid crystal alignment properties. However, in terms of thermal stability, it was more thermally stable in the 1‐min sample. This means that the formation of patterns has a significant impact on orientation properties, and the change in van der Waals force due to chemical changes also affects the orientation properties to some extent. In addition, excellent electro‐optical properties were also confirmed.

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We propose an efficient alignment method for liquid crystals (LCs). A brush-coating method handles film deposition and LC alignment treatment simultaneously herein, meaning a reduction in the conventional alignment layer treatment process steps. A lanthanum yttrium strontium oxide (LaYSrO) film prepared by the sol–gel process was used for the alignment layer. Topographical details of the brush-coated LaYSrO films (compared with spin-coated films) were investigated by atomic force microscopy. Spin-coated LaYSrO meant that the film formation alone without orientation treatment represented an isotropic surface. On the other hand, the 270 °C-cured brush-coated LaYSrO showed nano/microstructure with directionality. It indicates that brush-hair sweeping induced shearing stress on the sol state of the LaYSrO, which results in surface anisotropy for LC alignment. The uniform LC alignment state was confirmed by polarized optical microscopy and pretilt analysis. The brush-coated LaYSrO shows fine optical transparency compared to plain and indium-tin-oxide coated glasses, and thermal stability up to 150 °C for LC alignment. Competitive electro-optical performances of the brush-coated LaYSrO were verified in a twisted-nematic LC system compared to those of the conventionally used polyimide layer. Consequently, we expect that the brush-coating process can be an innovative technology for LC alignment.