APL Materials is published by AIP Publishing. The Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editors carefully care for the content of the journal and are responsible for editorial matters of the journal.

Criteria for Publication

We accept manuscripts for publication in APL Materials that meet the following criteria:

• Contain high-quality science with strong evidence for the conclusions.
• Contain original and new information with a significant impact for the field.
• Contain timely information of interest to the scientists in the field and researchers across other disciplines.

Language Standard: It is the authors’ responsibility to ensure that the manuscript is written clearly. A manuscript may be rejected or returned to the authors for a rewrite before peer review if the scientific meaning is unclear due to poor English. Good science has no value unless it is clearly communicated, so AIP Publishing recommends that authors use AIPP Author Services to improve the quality of their paper’s written English. AIPP Author Services was developed in line with our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion for all authors. Using this service ensures that your paper will be free of language deficiencies, so editors and reviewers will be able to fully understand your research during the review process. A native English-speaking subject matter expert will correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation, and verify the use and consistency of technical terms and content in your paper. Use of AIP Author Services is neither a requirement nor a guarantee of peer review or publication.

Patents: Authors assume the risk of submitting manuscripts that contain patentable ideas. Neither APL Materials nor AIP Publishing assumes any responsibility in this regard.

Format and Content

APL Materials publishes 12 issues per year. Visit our author resource center or the APL Materials author instructions for more information on preparing your manuscript.

Below are the various article types we publish:

Articles contain novel and significant original research findings in materials science. Articles should be concise and present a clear description of the research, including sufficient experimental information to allow other researchers to reproduce the reported results. Authors may include supplementary material, including video or other multimedia files.

Perspectives are articles presenting an expert forward-looking viewpoint on topics currently generating significant interest in the research community. While perspectives generally provide a brief overview of the topic, their main purpose is to provide a forward-looking view on where progress in a particular research area is heading.

Reviews published in APL Materials are succinct overviews that detail recent progress in a topic of importance to materials science. Reviews are meant to enhance or introduce the research field.

Accounts are articles of specific interest to the author and should focus primarily on the author’s own experience with experimental or theoretical research. The article may include unpublished data but should primarily present the history and perspective of the author and their contributions to the research area.

Roadmap articles should provide a broad overview of a field, with particular emphasis on the trajectory of the research area. The content of a Roadmap is meant to address the status, advances, challenges, and future directions of subtopics within a field from the perspectives of a wide number of experts. As a united review, the Roadmap should provide a high-level overview of the field as a whole. Authors are encouraged to submit a proposal for a Roadmap article with the editorial team before beginning to write or submitting the article.

Commentaries are discussions of nonscientific issues related to materials science, such as status reports and policies. Commentaries should be well reasoned, critical descriptions.

Comments and Responses are two connected article types that are used to address scientific issues within articles published in the journal. Researchers considering a Comment are encouraged to directly contact the authors of the original article first, as comments will be published only if the same result cannot be achieved through publication of either an Erratum or a new article. We discourage Comments on questions of priority or calling attention to an oversight in a reference list.

Generally, the authors of the original article will be invited to submit a Response to the Comment, and the Comment and Response will be peer reviewed together. If the Comment and Response are both accepted, they will appear in the same journal issue. No further exchange beyond this point will be considered for publication.

Comments and Responses should be no longer than roughly 1000 words. The title should read: Comment/Response on "original title" [APL Mater. volume, page (year)].

Special Topic Collections are organized in collaboration with experts in a topic of significant interest to the material science community. These collections are a grouping of articles curated to highlight this topic of interest, and report on new results that significantly advance our understanding of the field. Special Topic submissions are subject to the journal’s usual rigorous review process. If accepted, the articles will be published when they are ready in a regular issue of the journal and will populate on a virtual collection page within a few days of publication. Inclusion in the collection will not cause delay in publication.

The Review Process

Submitted manuscripts are examined by the editorial team for suitability for the journal. If appropriate, the submissions are sent to expert reviewers for further evaluation. The editors are the authority determining if a manuscript is suitable for publication in the journal, typically after one round of review.

Transfers

If your manuscript is not accepted for publication in APL Materials, an editor may recommend a transfer to another AIP Publishing journal for immediate consideration. In some cases, the transfers are offered after consultations with the editors of other AIP Publishing journals.

If you choose to transfer your manuscript, all reviewer reports and editor recommendations will be transferred along with the manuscript. Please visit the receiving journal's website for more information. Manuscripts must meet the receiving journal’s acceptance criteria. Note that there is no guarantee that the receiving journal will publish a transferred manuscript.

Appeals

Authors may appeal an editor's decision to reject a manuscript through the APL Materials submissions site. An appeal should include a revised manuscript as well as a succinct (one page or less) appeal letter explaining the arguments in favor of reconsideration. Successful appeals focus on clarifying the suitability or importance of the work if it was initially rejected because it did not fit the journal’s criteria for publication, or rebut the technical issues raised in the editor’s and/or referees’ reports if the manuscript was originally rejected based on technical grounds. Because the manuscript was initially rejected, the appeal must provide an insight or argument that goes beyond what the editor already learned through the review process, thereby compelling the editor to conclude that the manuscript merits further consideration. Appeals will be considered by the Editor-in-Chief on a case-by-case basis. Associate Editors may be consulted for a second opinion.

Retraction and Correction Policies

AIP Publishing’s policy is based on best practices in academic publishing. We take seriously our responsibility to maintain the integrity and completeness of the scholarly record. We place great importance on the authority of articles after we publish them. Authors may make changes to articles after they have been published online only under the circumstances outlined in AIP Publishing’s Retraction and Correction Policies.