A highly self-textured Ga2O3-substituted Li7La3Zr2O12 (LLZO-Ga) solid electrolyte with a nominal composition of Li6.55Ga0.15La3Zr2O12 is obtained by a simple and low-cost solid-state reaction technique, requiring no seed crystals to achieve grain orientation. The as-prepared self-textured LLZO-Ga shows a strong (420) preferred orientation with a high Lotgering factor of 0.91. Coherently, a terrace-shaped microstructure consisting of many parallel layers, indicating a two-dimensional-like growth mode, is clearly observed in the self-textured sample. As a result, the highly self-textured garnet-type lithium-ion conducting solid electrolyte of LLZO-Ga exhibits an extremely high ionic conductivity, reaching a state-of-the-art level of 2.06 × 10−3 S cm−1 at room temperature (25 °C) and thus shedding light on an important strategy for improving the structure and ionic conductivity of solid electrolytes.

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A method for fabrication of highly (100)-oriented Pb(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 (PZT) thin films by rf magnetron sputtering with a special buffer of PbOx (RFMS-SBP) was developed. With this method, highly (100)-oriented Pb(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 thin films were prepared on the PbOx∕Pt(111)∕Ti∕SiO2∕Si(100) substrates, and the preferential (100) orientation of the Pb(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 film is 92%. The (100) orientation of the PbOx buffer layer leads to the (100) orientation of the PZT thin films, and the thickness of the buffer layer plays a significant role on the phase purity and electrical properties of the films. Highly (100)-oriented Pb(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 thin films with proper thickness of PbOx buffer layer possess good electrical properties with larger remnant polarization Pr (69.7 μC∕cm2), lower coercive field Ec (92.4 kV/cm), and good pyroelectric coefficient at room temperature (2.6×10−8 C∕cm2 K). The butterfly-shaped ε-E characteristic curve gives the evidence of the improved in-plane ferroelectric property in the films.

Symmetric continuously tunable three-dimensional (3D) liquid photonic crystals have been investigated using self-organized blue-phase liquid crystal films. The photonic band gap in the overall visible spectrum can be tuned continuously, reversibly, and rapidly as the applied electric field changes. After driven by the applied field, four-time enhancement of the reflectivity results in more vivid reflection colors. A lasing emission of tuning working wavelength has been demonstrated by using the dye-doped blue-phase liquid crystal film. With the advantages of fast response speed, no alignment layer, large-scale electrically shift of the photonic band gap, and macro optical isotropy, this self-assembled soft material has many potential applications in high-performance reflective full-color display, 3D tunable lasers, and nonlinear optics.

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