The original purpose of polymer stabilisation of liquid crystals was the exploitation of scattering devices in electronic paper/eBook readers, but advancements in other technologies have replaced their initial purpose. However, novel uses continue to emerge, such as intelligent privacy windows, smart glass, reflective displays, broadband reflective cholesteric devices, uses in lasing or holography, and blue-phase displays. Motivated by the need to enhance the performance of smart windows, polymer-stabilised cholesteric liquid crystals (PSCLCs) are applied in this technology. This study investigated the morphology and spectroscopic characteristics of refilled polymer-stabilised liquid crystals. The polymer network is fabricated by introducing a small amount of bifunction monomer into a nematic or chiral nematic liquid crystal. This is then photo-polymerised to form a network which templates the liquid crystal structure it was formed in. The system formed is a bi-continuous material with a continuous polymer network within a continuous liquid crystal. Washing out the liquid crystal leaves a long-range orientationally ordered network for polymerization in the nematic phase and a helical network for the chiral nematic phase.

The primary aims of this research are the utilisation of different types of polymer networks, refilled with various liquid crystal phases. Different lyotropic or cholesteric liquid crystals with opposite handedness and varying pitch are refilled into a specific polymer network, and the interaction between network and liquid crystal characterized by polarizing microscopy and spectroscopy as well as scattering measurements is observed. We demonstrate significantly enhanced orientation of lyotropic LCs, low pitch limits of helical transfer, and induced twist grain boundary-like structures.