Since 1990-ties CMT investigated theoretically and experimentally a range of different structures for nanophotonics. The first paper in Serbia in the field of photonic crystals (photonic bandgap structures, PBG) originated from CMT. We introduced several new classes of photonic structures, including experimentally fabricated gradient-index photonic crystals for infrared range. A part of our investigation of structures with photonic stop band was dedicated to 1D structures with built-in donor or acceptor defect. We also fabricated 2D arrays of submicrometer pillars as building blocks for diffrative optical elements and for gradient index metamaterials for infrared. In 1997 we proposed a holographic method for the fabrication of 3D photonic crystals for optical range and introduced considerations of spatial optical noise as a limiting factor in application of mesoscopic structures in nanophotonics.