In this updated edition, the author focuses on topics that are critical to understanding how the basic principles of optics affect design decisions. In addition to information on breadboarding experiments and prototypes, the new edition also expands its coverage of diffraction and includes numerous complete examples, and practical reminders is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, and the Department of Bioengineering at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. He spent 14 years at Raytheon Company’s Electro-Optics Systems Laboratory in coherent laser radar for air safety and meteorology. Among other projects there, he worked on an airborne laser radar, flown on the Galileo-II, to monitor airflow related to severe storms, pollution, and wind energy, and another laser radar to characterize the wake vortices of landing aircraft. His current research in biomedical optics focuses on microscopy including coherent imaging, structured illumination, and multi-modal imaging. He is also a founding member of Gordon-CenSSIS – the Gordon Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems.