Structured light refers to the generation and application of custom light fields. As the tools and technology to create and detect structured light have evolved, steadily the applications have begun to emerge. This roadmap touches on the key fields within structured light from the perspective of experts in those areas, providing insight into the current state and the challenges their respective fields face. Collectively the roadmap outlines the venerable nature of structured light research and the exciting prospects for the future that are yet to be realized.

Optical tweezers, a simple and robust implementation of optical micromanipulation technologies, have become a standard tool in biological, medical and physics research laboratories. Recently, with the utilization of holographic beam shaping techniques, more sophisticated trapping configurations have been realized to overcome current challenges in applications. Holographically generated higher‐order light modes, for example, can induce highly structured and ordered three‐dimensional optical potential landscapes with promising applications in optically guided assembly, transfer of orbital angular momentum, or acceleration of particles along defined trajectories. The non‐diffracting property of particular light modes enables the optical manipulation in multiple planes or the creation of axially extended particle structures. Alongside with these concepts which rely on direct interaction of the light field with particles, two promising adjacent approaches tackle fundamental limitations by utilizing non‐optical forces which are, however, induced by optical light fields. Optoelectronic tweezers take advantage of dielectrophoretic forces for adaptive and flexible, massively parallel trapping. Photophoretic trapping makes use of thermal forces and by this means is perfectly suited for trapping absorbing particles. Hence the possibility to tailor light fields holographically, combined with the complementary dielectrophoretic and photophoretic trapping provides a holistic approach to the majority of optical micromanipulation scenarios.

Higher-order polarization singularities embedded in tailored vector beams are introduced and experimentally realized. As holographic modulation allows to define order and location of any vectorial singularity, the surrounding vector field can be dynamically shaped. We demonstrate light fields associated with flowers or spider webs due to regular and even irregular patterns of the orientation of polarization ellipses. Beyond that, not yet investigated hybrid structures are introduced that allow generating networks of flowers and webs in very close vicinity. Our results pave the way to applications of singular optics in spatially extended, optimized optical tweezing and high-resolution imaging.

We investigate the properties of angular momentum carrying vortex beams, reflected by a phase-conjugating mirror. It is shown that a self-pumped photorefractive phase-conjugating mirror is suitable to produce stable, high-fidelity phase conjugation of vortex beams. We prove that the topological charge of the vortex beam is maintained, and thus the angular momentum in the laboratory frame of reference is reversed, as it is expected by the time reversal property of the phase-conjugating mirror. The three dimensional interference pattern in front of the phase-conjugating mirror is studied and applications in optical traps are suggested.

Ince–Gaussian (IG) beams are a third complete family of solutions of the paraxial Helmholtz equation. While many applications of Hermite–Gaussian and Laguerre–Gaussian beams have been demonstrated for manipulation of microparticles, the potential of the more general class of IG beams has not yet been exploited at all. We describe the unique properties of IG beams with respect to optical trapping applications, demonstrate a flexible experimental realization of arbitrary IG beams and prove the concept by creating two- and three-dimensional, highly ordered assemblies of typical microparticles. The concept is universal and can easily be integrated into existing holographic optical tweezers setups.