In this article, thermal nanoimprint lithography (thermal-NIL) has been utilized to transfer the micro-groove pattern onto the plastic substrate. Without coating alignment polymer, the microgrooves on the flexible substrates can align liquid crystals (LCs) directly. The flexible LC cell is shown to maintain comparable electro-optical properties while bending. The plastic film and the alignment layer integrated into an alignment substrate could effectively prevent cracks of the additional polymer alignment layer during the bending process. This method is applicable to the roll-to-roll process to increase the production efficiency. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.