The mention of extra-terrestrial life is not as much of a red herring as you might imagine. The National Academies Decadal Survey for Astrophysics ("Astro2020"

The mention of extra-terrestrial life is not as much of a red herring as you might imagine. The National Academies Decadal Survey for Astrophysics ("Astro2020") recommended that NASA study an ~6m aperture telescope that would be capable of direct-imaging of exoplanets, and obtaining spectra of these exoplanets sufficient to detect atmospheric constituents that are associated with life. The nominal name for the telescope is HWO - Habitable Worlds Observatory. So this is very much an object of legitimate study, tech development, prototyping, etc. NASA's program for doing this is called GOMAP (https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/programs/gomap https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/programs/gomap). The motivation being to consider novel approaches now, before the architecture is settled. Detection and spectral characterization require excellent resolution and suppression of direct light from the host star, while preserving light from the planet. The people on the author list are working on novel photonics-based approaches to do this. As one example that I know about, and that your remark hints at, photonics approaches capture and manipulate amplitude and phase. There are photonic components that can achieve (in principle) any transfer function (filter), not just ones that can be implemented in glass. Doing this can help greatly to suppress starlight. (I work in the area.)