The surfaces of rubbed polyimide films for aligning liquid crystal have been studied by atomic force microscopy. The unrubbed films consisted of randomly distributed polyimide clusters of different sizes. On the rubbed surface, however, the clusters are aligned in long chains along the rubbing direction. The cluster chains were separated by about 100 nm for small rubbing strength. For higher strength the cluster chains coalesced into wider ones. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.