This article reports the application of the Photo-Induced Grating Relaxation technique (also known as Forced Rayleigh Scattering) to investigate the dynamics of films prepared from structured core-shell latex particles via the transport property of the photochromic tracer molecule Aberchrome 540((R)). The core-shell particles were prepared with a fluoropolymer core (immiscible and impenetrable to the tracer) and a poly(butyl methacrylate) shell. The incompletely dried films (with residual water) manifest their spatial heterogeneity via non-Fickian behavior (spatial scale-dependent apparent diffusion coefficient). The diffusion data was interpreted using the two-state diffusion model, previously developed to describe the tracer diffusion in latex films without any core-shell structure. In contrast to dry latex films made from homogeneous particles, where one observes Fickian diffusion indicative of a homogeneous polymer film, we find that the lattice of fluoropolymer cores leads to a length scale dependent diffusion coefficient for the tracer. This effect can be interpreted as microscopic evidence for a strain hardening effect due to the presence of a hardened layer of matrix polymer (= shell) surrounding the core, which act as nanofillers. This strain hardening effect could be quantified within the two-state diffusion model in terms of tracer diffusion coefficients and root mean squared displacements. (c) 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.