The book "Optics: Basic Principles and Applications" is the Greek edition of the 5th edition of Eugene Hecht's book "Optics". As a textbook, it maintains its dominant position worldwide for over twenty years and is distinguished by three main features: a) updated content according to the constantly evolving technological advances in pure Optics and practical applications, b) a modern approach to concepts, including the concept of photons, vector optics, and the corresponding classical theory, and c) improvement of pedagogy through further development of complex concepts by presenting over a hundred new, fully processed examples from everyday life and contemporary culture, scattered throughout the book. It balances the breadth of theory while providing students with the necessary classical background knowledge through a lively and clear presentation.

The book is an excellent textbook for the study of Optics and related sciences. It develops most topics from their basic elements and reaches fairly high levels without the use of demanding mathematics. The solved and unsolved problems as a whole are not very demanding and provide significant explanation of the concepts studied in the text.

It is addressed to students of Physics and Materials Science Departments of Universities, as well as to the corresponding Departments of Polytechnic Schools with a focus on Optical Applications Technology, and certainly serves as a helpful tool even in the first cycle of postgraduate studies.