I myself was bitten by a radioactive grad student in 2008 that was obsessed with this idea at the time, and have since learned that almost every major household name lab PI has thought about this in one form or another.
Maybe you should check sources that have been around longer than 2017 or even 2008. Optogenetics has been established as a field since at least 2005 (you can also search pubmed for optogenetics 2005). The field had been established and well known among microbiologists for 12 years when you discovered it.
I myself was bitten by a radioactive grad student in 2008 that was obsessed with this idea at the time, and have since learned that almost every major household name lab PI has thought about this in one form or another.