Conference Agenda

Structured light underpins a wide range of modern photonic technologies. In this talk, I will present several nanophotonic platforms for the generation, manipulation, and detection of structured light fields, including disordered mosaic metasurfaces, complex‑amplitude metasurface holograms, a multifunctional metasurface integrated with quantum emitters, optical metafibres, and on‑chip polaritonic surfaces capable of generating subwavelength vortex fields.

Optical sparse lattices offer attractive opportunities for structured illumination imaging owing to their powerful spatial multiplexing capabilities. Here, we present an intuitive theoretical framework based on Fourier optics, with practical metrics for evaluating and selecting optical lattices suitable for high-resolution imaging. Building on these lattices, we introduce sparse lattice structured illumination microscopy (SL-SIM), with numerical simulations showing its high resolving capabilities and showcasing its ability to efficiently improve the performance of low-resolution imaging systems.

This work investigates short-range 3D laser imaging (5–50 m) in highly scattering media such as fog, smoke, or turbid water. While temporal filtering could efficiently remove backscattered light from the medium, residual blur caused by weakly scattered “snake photons” still degrades image quality. To address this limitation, a structured illumination approach is experimentally evaluated. By projecting complementary illumination patterns and constraining both illumination field and field of view (FOV), the contribution of snake photons is decreased while enabling full-scene imaging. Experiments conducted on a black-and-white 2D target in a scaled-down laboratory setup demonstrate a significant contrast improvement compared to the sole temporal filtering technique. Future work will extend the current approach to 3D scenes.

Conventional optical 3D surface measurement technologies typically rely on the projection of a known pattern onto an unknown object. The pattern is then imaged via a stereoscopic camera setup which allows to retrieve the object’s surface by determining point correspondences between the two images. Alternatively, one can use a single camera in combination with multiple and strictly repeatable patterns that are projected into the measurement volume during the measurement process. Preferably, these patterns are generated directly at the distal end of the endoscopic optical setup to avoid potential interference from endoscope movements.

In this contribution we focus on design and manufacturing of a specific, purely passive pattern projection optics relying on freeform optical elements that transform an incoherent light source into complex, well-defined intensity distributions through deterministic wavefront shaping. Our optical design targets a field of view of up to 90 degrees to maximize surface coverage while addressing the resulting challenges in aberration correction and projection uniformity. We describe a flexible design algorithm for freeform optical elements capable of generating arbitrary quasi-binary light patterns, present first results on manufactured samples molded into glass, and conclude with initial measurement results.

This work investigates the application of structured light for the optical detection of nanoparticles and surface damage. Particular attention is paid to coaxial structured light and Bessel beams, which exhibit high spatial localization, robustness to perturbations, and strong potential for the detection of weak optical inhomogeneities. The interaction of the generated beams with scratches, dust particles, impurities, and other micro- and nanoscale surface defects was studied experimentally. It is shown that coaxial structured light configurations provide high sensitivity to local disturbances in the object structure and can be used for optical metrology and defect inspection. Of particular interest is the use of polarizers, owing to which the system exhibits a high-contrast visual effect qualitatively similar to schlieren photography, enabling more distinct detection of weak phase and amplitude inhomogeneities. The obtained results confirm the promise of structured light and coaxial structured light as a basis for highly sensitive methods of visualization, surface diagnostics, and the detection of submicron objects.