Electro-optical switching with low voltage, no hysteresis and fast response speed is achieved in polymer-stabilized nanoparticle-enriched blue phase liquid crystals with a wide temperature range, and it is found that the benefits from the combined method are more than from the simple addition of polymer stabilization and nanoparticle dispersion.

3-D flower like CoNi alloys nanostructures composed of nanorods have been synthesized by template free hydrothermal method at relatively low temperature (120 °C). The detailed characterizations confirm the formation of good crystalline fcc CoNi alloy, average crystallite size of 18.8 ± 1.0 nm, lattice parameter of 3.531 ± 0.01 Å, and the nearly equiatomic composition (Co₅₀Ni₅₀). Highly uniform flower like nano structures are built up with nanorod of diameter about 100 nm and length in range of 200–400 nm. The nanorods (building blocks of flower) have single crystalline nature with [111] preferred growth direction. The concentration of NaOH plays a vital role in formation of alloys and high concentration promotes the formation of CoNi alloy at low temperature. The concentration of NaOH also affects the morphology remarkably by changing the growth/reaction rate of CoNi nanostructures and results in hollow spheres to nanoplate flower of CoNi alloys. Based on the evolution of the morphology of the products, a step wise growth mechanism is rationally proposed for flower like nanostructures by considering the effects of kinetic parameters on growth. Magnetic measurements show Co₅₀Ni₅₀ flower like nanostructure have high saturation magnetization, coercivity, remanent magnetization, and high effective anisotropy constant of value 101.3 emu g⁻¹, 210.5 Oe, 16.2 emu g⁻¹, and 4.457 × 10⁴ J m⁻³ respectively. The enhancements of coercivity and effective anisotropy constant are attributed to nanoscale effects such as shape/surface anisotropy.

Hybrid polymers, which form a combination of monomers with different reactive groups and curing mechanisms, synergistically combine the properties of the two constituent homopolymers. In this paper, polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) films using epoxies / acrylates as hybrid polymer matrix components were prepared. The UV polymerisation temperature dependence of the microstructure and the electro-optical properties of PDLC films based on epoxies / acrylates hybrid polymer matrix had been studied. The electro-optical properties of PDLC films depend strongly on the liquid crystal (LC) domain size and morphology of PDLC films, which could be controlled by the polymerisation rate of the curable monomers and the diffusion rate of the LC molecules during the film preparation process. The polymerisation rate of the curable monomers and the diffusion rate of the LC molecules depend exponentially on the UV polymerisation temperature. Therefore, this research reports an example of methods to prepare PDLC films based on a hybrid polymer matrix and obtain PDLC films which possess good electro-optical properties.