Polymer-stabilized liquid crystals (PSLCs) are multi-functional materials consisting of polymer networks in a continuous phase of liquid crystals (LCs), of which polymer networks provide anchoring energy to align the LCs. A number of improvements are detailed, including polymer-stabilized nematic liquid crystals (PSNLCs), polymer-stabilized cholesteric liquid crystals (PSCLCs), polymer-stabilized blue phase liquid crystals (PSBPLCs), polymer-stabilized smectic liquid crystals (PSSLCs), polymer-stabilized ferroelectric liquid crystals (PSFLCs), and polymer-stabilized antiferroelectric liquid crystals (PSAFLCs) in this review. Polymer stabilization has achieved multiple functionalities for LCs; in smart windows, a sufficiently strong electric field allows the LCs to reorient and enables switching from a scattering (transparent) state to a transparent (scattering) state. For broadband reflectors, the reflection bandwidth of LCs is manually tuned by electric fields, light, magnetic fields, or temperature. PSBPLCs open a new way for next-generation displays, spatial light modulators, sensors, lasers, lenses, and photonics applications. Polymer networks in PSFLCs or PSAFLCs enhance their grayscale memories utilized in flexible displays and energy-saving smart cards. At the end, the remaining challenges and research opportunities of PSLCs are discussed.

With the increasing demand for energy, how to store and release energy efficiently and stably has become an urgent research topic. Polymer dielectrics have become a kind of ideal dielectric materials in electrostatic capacitors for energy storage due to their advantages of light weight, easy fabrication, low cost, and high breakdown strength. It has a wide application prospect in smart power grids, new energy vehicles, pulse power weapons, electromagnetic guns, and lasers. However, existing polymer dielectrics cannot simultaneously possess the characteristics of high energy density, high breakdown field intensity, high charge and discharge efficiency, and low dielectric loss, thus limiting the development of compact, efficient, and reliable electronic power technology. In addition, the inherent thermal/field charge injection, excitation, and transport phenomena of polymer dielectrics make the resistivity and dielectric energy storage properties of polymer dielectrics decrease sharply under the combined action of high temperature and high electric field. In order to optimize the energy storage performance of polymer dielectrics (including room temperature and high temperature dielectrics), it has been obtained excellent dielectric breakdown strength, energy storage density, energy storage charge, and discharge efficiency from polymer nanocomposites, polymer/small molecule composites, polymer/polymer blends, new synthetic polymers, multilayer polymers, and other material systems. Based on these material systems, this review summarizes and compares these material systems, points out their advantages and disadvantages including the key problems, and puts forward suggestions for the future research.

This review summarizes the main types, processing methods, and applications of optical diffusers in LCDs, LED lighting, OLEDs, and solar cells. The tunable ones accelerate their applications in flexible opto-electronic, holographic, or 3D displays.

Liquid crystal (LC) droplets are highly attractive for applications in privacy windows, optical switches, optical vortices, optical microresonators, microlenses, and biosensors due to their ease of fabrication and easy alignment at surfaces. This review presents the latest advancements in LC droplets, which have nematic, chiral nematic, and twist–bend nematic and ferroelectric nematic phases, or blue phases. Finally, it discusses the challenges and opportunities for applications based on LC droplets. The main challenges encompass the precise control of internal structures and defects to meet diverse application requirements, enhancing stability and durability across various environments, reducing large-scale production costs to improve commercial feasibility, increasing response speeds to external stimuli to adapt to rapidly changing scenarios, and developing tunable LC droplets to achieve broader functionalities.

Liquid crystal (LC) photoalignment and photopatterning provide versatile, non‐contact approaches for encoding spatially varying molecular orientation, enabling compact, flat, and reconfigurable optical elements for structured light generation. This review summarizes recent advances in photoalignment strategies and patterned LC architectures that directly tailor optical phase, polarization, and amplitude, therefore producing a wide range of structured beams and wavefronts. We cover multiple LC phases including nematic, chiral nematic, blue phase (BP), and ferroelectric nematic (N _F ) systems. Emphasis is placed on the translation from photoaligned LC director patterns to core structured‐light functionalities, including geometric‐phase modulation, and vector beams (VBs), orbital angular momentum (OAM) mode generation, as well as beam steering, lattice formation and intensity‐profile shaping. By explicitly linking fabrication routes and patterning fidelity to structured light metrics, this review establishes a unified framework for the rational design of photoaligned LC photonic systems and identifies pathways toward scalable manufacturing. We further discuss emerging LC‐enabled opportunities for quantum structured light and quantum information processing, and outline promising research directions at the intersection of advanced LC materials and integrated photonics.