Ultra-high spatial resolutions in photopatterning molecular orientations.

Accurately aligning liquid crystal molecules into predetermined spatially variant orientations is crucial for fabricating devices such as flat optical elements, soft actuators and robots. Despite the developments of various photopatterning techniques for this purpose, the limits of their spatial resolutions have been rarely addressed. In this study, we delve into the physical constraints governing the spatial resolutions of two prominent photopatterning methods: single exposure to light fields with structured polarizations and multi-exposures to light fields with structured intensities.