P ro ceed in gs of t h e I n t ern a ti o nal W o rk sho p N O A '02 , Êu k ≤ci n 200 2 D y n am ica l El ect r o{ O p tic al C h arac te ri zation of P olic ry p s G ratin gs G . A bbat e Ê , A . Ma r i no and F. V it a IN FM UdR of Napl es and D SF Un i versitå di Nap ol i Federi co I I , Napl es, Ita l y W e have st udied the dy na mi cal response at 633 and 1550 nm of a new p olymer -li qui d crystal comp osite , reali zed in a form of a thic k grating . T his comp osite is know n as

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... ps, an acronym that stands for \Polymer Liquid C rystals Polymer Slides ", because it show s a sequence of polymeric sheets alternated by layers containing only liqui d crystal. Policryps gratings can b e electricall y switched b etw een di˜ractin g and non-di˜ra ctin g states w ith a go od di˜ractio n e£ciency in the visibl e region. A fter optimizatio n of their p erformances, includi ng response time, in the near inf rared region, they can b e conveniently prop osed as a key comp onent in photonic devices for telecom applica tion s. Our results show very interesting resp onse times ranging from 1 to 3 ms (sw itching on ) and from 0. 1 to 0.4 ms (sw itching o˜). Furthermore, switching ON times app ear to b e ruled by two di˜erent physical mechanisms w ith characteristic times di˜ering by one order of magnitude. A deep er insight of these mechanisms might lead to resp onse times, all in the submill i second range. PACS numb ers: 42.70. Df , 42.79.K r