As the vital elements for building environments, windows are utilized to bring light as well as thermal irradiation into the interior places and afford the medium for the communication between the interior and exterior of buildings. Liquid crystal (LC)‐based smart windows, which are mainly made of LC materials or polymer/LC composites, can dynamically modulate light transmittance and regulate the heat radiation entering buildings from the sun via the orientation variation of the LC molecules. Such smart windows play an important role in intelligent buildings and building energy conservation, which contributes to providing a more comfortable and low‐energy‐consumption living environment for mankind. In this review, recent progress in LC‐based smart windows of each category is overviewed. New materials, new ideas, and new methods to improve the performance of conventional LC‐based smart windows and create novel smart window technologies are outlined. Different advanced LC‐based smart window technologies, including electrochromism, thermochromism, photochromism, humidity‐triggered chromism, mechanical self‐powered technique, and dynamic infrared regulating mechanisms, are discussed systematically. The applications of LC‐based smart windows in indoor illumination/privacy protection switching, human‐machine interaction, and thermal regulation for intelligent buildings are highlighted. Last, the challenges and perspectives of LC‐based smart windows are also provided.

Optically reconfigurable monodisperse chiral microspheres of self-organized helical superstructures with dynamic chirality were fabricated via a capillary-based microfluidic technique. Light-driven handedness-invertible transformations between different configurations of microspheres were vividly observed and optically tunable RGB photonic cross-communications among the microspheres were demonstrated.

Liquid crystals (LCs), as the remarkable optical materials possessing stimuli-responsive property and optical modulation property simultaneously, have been utilized to fabricate a wide variety of optical devices. Integrating the LCs and receptors together, LC biosensors aimed at detecting various biomolecules have been extensively explored. Compared with the traditional biosensing technologies, the LC biosensors are simple, visualized, and efficient. Owning to the irreplaceable superiorities, the research enthusiasm for the LC biosensors is rapidly rising. As a result, it is necessary to overview the development of the LC biosensors to guide future work. This article reviews the basic theory and advanced applications of LC biosensors. We first discuss different mesophases and geometries employed to fabricate LC biosensors, after which we introduce various detecting mechanisms involved in biomolecular detection. We then focus on diverse detection targets such as proteins, enzymes, nucleic acids, glucose, cholesterol, bile acids, and lipopolysaccharides. For each of these targets, the development history and state-of-the-art work are exhibited in detail. Finally, the current challenges and potential development directions of the LC biosensors are introduced briefly.

As an excellent representative of a new generation of semiconductor materials, perovskite materials are sweeping the whole photoelectric field like a storm (such as photovoltaic, electroluminescence, photoelectric detection and imaging, memristor, thermoelectricity, and other fields). In the field of photoelectric detection and imaging, perovskite materials show unique and excellent application potential of photoelectric detection and imaging. This paper overviews the recent advances of photoelectric detection units (PDUs) based on perovskite materials for imaging. First, the key characteristics and indexes of perovskite materials and PDUs are introduced. Then, the PDUs of conventional imaging in UV–vis–NIR band are introduced from organic–inorganic hybrid and all‐inorganic perovskite materials respectively. Then, the research of perovskite materials in X‐ray image detection and biological imaging is summarized. Finally, the application prospects of perovskite materials in PDUs imaging is discussed.

In this review, we discuss the fabrication, optimization and applications of liquid crystal microcapsules in detail. The current challenges and potential development directions are also introduced briefly.

The established role of nematic liquid crystals (NLCs) in the recent rapid development of displays has motivated researchers to modulate the electro-optical properties of LCs. Furthermore, adding nanomaterials into NLCs has led to enhancements of the properties of NLCs, like reduced threshold of the operating voltage, variation in pretilt angle, reduced switching time, etc. These enhanced properties, due to interfacial dynamics, are enabling wider applications of NLCs and nanomaterials. The recent literature of nanomaterial-doped NLCs is rich with various kinds of nanomaterials in a variety of NLCs. The light has been focused on the most widely used and studied gold nanoparticles in NLCs. The intrinsic inherent property of easy excitation of surface plasmons polaritons (SPP) is the mediating interaction of NLC electric dipoles and the polarization of charges in the GNP surface. The concepts and methods for the application of metal nanomaterials as dopants in NLCs are discussed for future applications, especially biosensors. The biosensing application of NLCs alone has already been proven in the literature. However, it is always desirable to further enhance the detection efficiency and selectivity, which have been achieved by the conjugation of GNPs and nickel nanoparticles with NLCs and their compatibility with biological materials. This aspect of future application of nanoparticles and NLC makes the point more selective to be included in the present manuscript.