Аннотация:We study electrically driven switching of liquid-crystal-metasurfaces between diffracting and transmitting states. We fabricate periodic metasurfaces that self-assemble upon stripe patterns and scatter light symmetrically into several diffraction orders as well as superperiodic ones that form upon more complex patterns and diffract light efficiently into a single order. The voltage applied across the metasurfaces straightens the liquid crystal, suppresses the diffraction and enhances the transmission. We observe universal features of the switching dynamics: the times of transition from diffracting to transmitting state decrease down to a millisecond as the driving voltage increases up to 6–8 volts, while the main part of the relaxation back into diffracting state occurs within a few milliseconds. We interpret the remarkably fast electro-optics in terms of superimposed exponential modes that are by an order of magnitude faster than those of analogous conventional liquid crystal cells.