Wavefront shaping is a powerful technique that transforms disordered speckles into coherent optical foci through active modulation, offering significant potential for optical imaging and information delivery. However, its practical application faces substantial challenges, particularly due to the dynamic variation of speckles over time, which requires the development of fast and adaptive wavefront shaping systems.

This study introduces a coded self-referencing wavefront shaping system designed for rapid transmission matrix measurement and wavefront control. By encoding both signal and reference light within a single beam for probing complex media, this method effectively addresses key limitations of traditional approaches, such as interference noise in interferometric holography, loss of controllable elements in coaxial interferometry, and the computational burden of non-holographic phase retrieval methods.

Experimental demonstrations of optical focusing through complex scattering media, including unfixed multimode fibers and stacked ground glass diffusers, show the system's capability. The system achieved runtimes of 21.90 ms and 76.26 ms for 256 and 1024 controllable elements, respectively, with corresponding average mode times of 85.54 μs and 74.47 μs—pushing the system to its hardware limits. Additionally, the system's robustness against dynamic scattering was confirmed by maintaining optical focus through moving diffusers, with correlation times as short as 21 ms.

The system's ability to parallelly measure multiple rows of the transmission matrix makes it highly efficient in controlling large-scale transmission matrices. The method's potential for real-time optical applications in fields like imaging, communication, and sensing is particularly promising for environments with complex and dynamic scattering. This work, titled "Coded self-referencing wavefront shaping for fast dynamic scattering control" published in Advanced Imaging 2025, showcases significant advancements in high-speed, reference-less wavefront shaping techniques, offering a versatile solution for future optical technologies.