Herbert Gross, born in 1955, joined Carl Zeiss in 1982 after finishing his physics degree as specialist for optical design. Since 1995 he has been working as head of the department of optical design, while also teaching as a lecturer in Aalen and Lausanne. The new handbook is an intuitive, didactically elegant approach to the subject of optical systems and is not competed by any other work on the market. The selected board of authors, all reputed industrial experts, guarantee the timeliness of the well coordinated, coherent chapters. The topics of the fifth volume comprise the methods of measuring the properties of optical systems. The different fundamental techniques, such as propagation measurement and polarimetry, are introduced and discussed in detail and clarity. The presentation allows the reader, after having devised an optical system, to perform the measurements best suited to ascertain that the system fulfills the specific needs and requirements. The following chapters provide a survey on materials, coatings and surfaces of optical components, and combine this with a treatment of light and radiation. The book thus serves as a one-stop reference for metrology of optical systems.