Patent ID: 7718234

Claim:
A liquid crystal display comprising: a pair of substrates, at least one of said substrates being transparent; a liquid crystal layer disposed between said pair of substrates; a group of electrodes formed on one of said pair of substrates and configured so as to apply an electric field having a component substantially in parallel with a surface of said one of said pair of substrates to said liquid crystal layer; a plurality of active devices connected to said group of electrodes; an alignment control film disposed between said liquid crystal layer and at least one of said pair of substrate; and optical means formed on at least one of said pair of substrates for changing the optical property of said liquid crystal layer in accordance with an alignment state of liquid crystal molecules of said liquid crystal layer; wherein at least one of said alignment control films is an alignment control film comprising photoreactive polyimide and/or polyamic acid provided with an alignment control ability by irradiation of substantially linearly polarized light having a wavelength range from 200 nm to 400 nm; wherein said photoreactive alignment control film contains polyamic acid or polyimide comprising cyclobutanetetracarboxylic acid dianhydride and/or its derivative and aromatic diamine; and wherein the cyclobutanetetracarboxylic acid dianhydride and/or its derivative is a compound represented by a formula [1]: where R 1 , R 2 , R 3 , R 4 of the compound of formula [1] each represent a hydrogen atom, a fluorine atom, an alkyl group or alkoxyl group with a carbon number of 1 to 6, with the proviso that at least one of R 1 , R 2 , R 3 and R 4 of the compound of formula [1] is not hydrogen.