Micro- and nanostructured materials are of growing interest due to their potential applications in size-selective membranes, electronics or biomaterials, to name a few. The internal organization at the nano-scale considerably enhances the performance of the generated polymer network. Recently, nanostructured hydrogels have demonstrated improved transport and mechanical properties. A common way to control the morphology at the micro- and nanoscale is based on the self-assembly of block copolymers. Because of thermodynamic incompatibility between the various blocks, block copolymers generate various mesophases in bulk (micellar, hexagonal, gyroid or lamellar in the case of a diblock copolymer) depending on the volume fraction of a given block. The nanostructure is then locked in using a crosslinking reaction. However, this method requires the long and tedious synthesis of a specific block copolymer to target a particular morphology, which is neither straightforward nor versatile. A promising alternative route utilizes the order generated by surfactant molecules, namely lyotropic liquid crystal (LLC), as a template for photopolymerization of monomer and crosslinkers.
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