Light fields in complex media: Mesoscopic scattering meets wave control

The newly emerging field of wave front shaping in complex media has recently seen enormous progress. The driving force behind these advances has been the experimental accessibility of the information stored in the scattering matrix of a disordered medium, which can nowadays routinely be exploited to focus light as well as to image or to transmit information even across highly turbid scattering samples. An overview of these new techniques, their experimental implementations, and the underlying theoretical concepts following from mesoscopic scattering theory is provided. In particular, the intimate connections between quantum transport phenomena and the scattering of light fields in disordered media, which can both be described by the same theoretical concepts, are highlighted. Particular emphasis is put on how these topics relate to application-oriented research fields such as optical imaging, sensing, and communication.