High-contrast imaging observations of exoplanets: current status and future

Thanks to notable advancements in adaptive optics combined with
coronagraphic observational strategies, high-contrast imaging techniques
are rapidly progressing in the current years. The exploration of the
sub-stellar regime via direct imaging, hampered so far by technical limitations, is starting to provide us with a powerful tool, thanks to the advent of new-generation instruments, such as e.g., GPI or ScEXAO. SPHERE at VLT is a new facility that combining extreme adaptive optics with coronagraphy, dual-band imaging, and integral field spectroscopy has recently started its operations and aims at revealing relatively massive exoplanets at few tenths of arcsecond separations and contrasts better than 10^6. In this contribution I will present recent results obtained with SPHERE in the framework of the exoplanet detection and characterisation. Moreover, I will present a new system for coronagraphy with high-order adaptive optics that will be operating at LBT by the end of 2018: SHARK. This system will provide coronagraphic observations from visual to NIR bands, granting a very powerful tool that is not currently available for any other instrument in the world. Finally, I will discuss the employment of a brand-new technique that combines high-contrast imaging with high-dispersion spectroscopy, allowing in principle to reach contrasts down to 10^10. In the era of E-ELT, this will open the way to investigating earth-like planets in the habitable zones of their parent stars.