  It is well known that the alignment of liquid crystals can be realized by
rubbing or photoalignment technologies. Recently nonlinear laser lithography
was introduced as a fast, relatively low-cost method for large area
nano-grating fabrication based on laser-induced periodic surface structuring.
In this letter for the first time the usage of the nonlinear laser lithography
as a perspective method of the alignment of nematics was presented. By
nonlinear laser lithography, microgrooves with about 1 {\mu}m period were
formed on Ti layer. The microstructured Ti layer was coated with
oxidianiline-polyimide film with annealing of the polymer followed without any
further processing. Aligning properties of microstructured Ti layers were
examined with combined twist LC cell. The dependencies of the twist angle of LC
cells and azimuthal anchoring energy of layers on scanning speed and power of
laser beam during processing of the Ti layer were the focus of our studies as
well. The maximum azimuthal anchoring energy, obtained for pure microstructured
Ti layer, is comparable with photoalignment technology. It was found that the
deposition of polyimide film on microstructured Ti layer leads to the gain
effect of the azimuthal anchoring energy. Also, AFM study of aligning surfaces
was carried out.
