It has been four years since the publication of the ?rst edition of this book. During these four years optical imaging has advanced considerably. Nevertheless, when we were asked to compile a second edition of this book the ?rst question we asked was: are there any topics that were missed out from the ?rst edition? Even though there are a fairly large number of subjects that we could potentially have considered it was decided to extend the book by two new chapters. The ?rst one is on the use of di?ractive optical elements in high quality objective lenses by Drs Brunner and Dobschal from Carl Zeiss AG. It is particularly exciting to have this chapter in the book because it is likely that di?ractive elements will play an increasingly imp- tant role in high precision optical instrumentation in the future. The second new chapter is by Daniel Axelrod of University of Michigan on total internal re?ection ?uorescence (TIRF). We believe that many readers will ?nd the chapter from Prof. Axelrod, who developed TIRF about 20 years ago, insightful and very interesting. In addition to the new chapters some chapters have been revised and consid- ably expanded. These revisions are primarily there to include the most up-to-date material and recent advances of the ?eld. Special note of thanks must go to Drs Claus Ascheron and Angela Lahee of Springer-Verlagfor their encouragementand help.
Reviews / Votes
From the reviews:
"The editors have selected a well known group of contributors who have written a straightforward . book. The well-illustrated volume is organized in three parts . . I found the descriptions of the theory and the details of the instrumentation very helpful. Important references are included, as in an index. I highly recommend this book for an audience of scientists, engineers, graduate students and optical microscopists." (Barry R. Masters, Optics and Photonics News, Vol. 15 (12), December, 2004)
"This book is collecting for the first time contributions from imaging related subjects that were not previously published in this form or they are difficult to access. . This text on contemporary optical systems is intended for optical researchers and engineers, graduate students and optical microscopists in the biological and biomedical sciences." (D. Weder, Optik, Vol. 115 (10), 2004)
"The book presents a rather eclectic collection of optical techniques. . the audience for this book will be graduate-level physics students or physical science researchers seeking to learn more about a specific technique." (DeVon W. Griffin, The Industrial Physicist, October, 2004)
