The Review Process

Applied Physics Reviews (APR) is published by AIP Publishing. The editors are responsible for the scientific content and other editorial matters related to the journal.

The Review Process

As a service to the authors, APR is committed to an efficient review process leading to rapid editorial decisions.

All newly submitted manuscripts are read and evaluated by the editorial staff. The editors may seek informal advice from colleagues and members of the Advisory Board. The goal is to assess early if the manuscript should be sent for formal review. Those papers judged by the editors to be of insufficient general interest, or otherwise inappropriate, are rejected promptly without external review. At this stage, editors also evaluate the possible suitability of the manuscript for other journals in the AIPP portfolio. Authors have the option to automatically transfer their work to one of these journals.

Manuscripts that pass the initial assessment are sent for formal review. Typically, two or three independent reviewers are carefully selected from the worldwide research community.

The reviewers comment critically on the validity and importance of the paper and provide their opinion concerning the novelty, impact, and interest to the readers. Reviewers are encouraged to organize their feedback into “Major/Required Revisions”, “Minor/Recommended Revisions”, and “General Feedback”. If a reviewer considers a manuscript to be better suited for another AIPP journal, that reviewer should provide rationale for this recommendation.

Reviewer reports are intended to advise the editors. To improve the clarity of the advice provided to the authors, the reviewers may be invited to confidentially cross-review all reports received. The additional feedback should be provided to the editors within three days. In cases where the decision is clear, the editors may proceed without cross-review. The editors reconcile all the advice received to reach a decision. Generally, the editors transmit all comments intended for the authors. Occasionally, the comments may be edited to preserve the anonymity and collegiality of the process.

Authors are invited to take the reviewer’s criticisms seriously. When invited to resubmit, authors should make every attempt to address all criticisms presented to them.

The editors will not reveal the reviewers' identities to authors or to other reviewers, conversely, reviewers will refrain from identifying themselves to the authors.

Reviewers must treat the review process and all material related as strictly confidential. Reviewers may seek the opinion and consult with colleagues but should inform the editors first to preserve the integrity of the review process. When seeking these external opinions, the reviewer should first consider possible conflict of interests. The editors also ask that reviewers report their own conflict of interest.

Authors may appeal the decision to reject a manuscript. To be considered, a formal appeal must provide a case for further consideration. If reviewer reports were included with the rejection letter, then these criticisms must be responded to in the appeal.

Once an appeal is submitted, the editors collate all information relevant to the manuscript. This includes the cover letter, the communications with the authors, and reviewer reports, if any. This information is shared and discussed with the Editor-in-Chief, with all editors working on original research manuscripts, and with relevant Reviews editors in terms of expertise, who have no conflict of interest with the work presented. In some cases, a member of the journal’s Editorial Advisory Board will also be consulted. The discussion is based on the manuscript under consideration, as well as on the range of submissions the journal receives in the area, the overall status of the field, and the editors’ expectations for a paper in the area.

If successful, an appeal can lead to the article’s review being resumed. Otherwise, the original rejection decision is upheld. The author of a paper that has been rejected after an appeal may request that the Publisher of AIP Publishing review the manuscript. The Publisher does not decide whether a manuscript should be accepted but rather assesses whether editors followed the proper procedures for reviewing the manuscript. If editors did not follow the proper procedures, they will review the manuscript again and decide whether to publish.

Criteria for Publication

Content. APR publishes original research and reviews.

Review articles provide either comprehensive or focused overviews of innovative research in applied physics. Reviews that, in the editor’s or reviewer’s opinion, do not meet this standard will be rejected.

To be published in APR, an original research paper must have the potential to influence thinking in the field and should make a fundamental discovery or represent a significant advance in understanding of an existing problem. Moreover, it must meet several general criteria:

  • Validity: The paper must provide strong evidence for its conclusions, and the data must be technically sound.
  • Novelty: The paper must report original scientific research that was not previously published elsewhere. Abstracts, preprints, and conference presentations do not compromise a claim of novelty.
  • Interest: The papers must be important to researchers in its specific field and be of interest to a broader readership.

Although there is no length limit, manuscripts should be as concise as possible and present a clear description of the research. Articles should include sufficient information to allow other researchers to reproduce the reported results. Authors may include supplementary material, including video or other multimedia files. In all cases, the editors decide whether the length of an article is appropriate for the information presented.

Language standard: It is the authors’ responsibility to ensure that manuscripts are written clearly. A manuscript can be rejected if the scientific meaning is unclear due to poor English. Manuscripts that do not meet the Applied Physics Reviews’ language standard will be returned to the authors for rewrite before peer review, during the review process and/or if provisionally accepted pending language editing.

Because good science has no value unless it is clearly communicated, AIP Publishing recommends that authors use AIPP Author Services to improve the quality of your 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 of AIP Author Services will correct spelling, grammar and punctuation and verify the use and consistency of technical terms and content in your paper. Note that this is not a requirement or a guarantee of acceptance for review or publication.

Patents. Authors who submit manuscripts containing ideas that may be patentable, do so at their own risk. Neither APR nor AIP Publishing assumes any responsibility in this regard.

Byline. The person who submits the paper is responsible for ensuring that all authors approve of the inclusion of their names in the byline. After the submission date, whenever a coauthor is removed from, or added to, a byline, we must have a signed agreement of that coauthor before we publish the manuscript.

Copyright. Authors publishing in APR must complete an exclusive License-to-Publish Agreement before the journal publishes their manuscript. To avoid unnecessary delays, authors should sign the agreement electronically submitting the manuscript.

Authors have the right to post their APR-accepted manuscript anywhere on the Web immediately after AIP Publishing accepts it for publication. In addition, 12 months after publication, authors may post the final AIP Publishing version on their personal website, the author's institutional website, or in an institutional or funder-designated repository. You may create a link to the APR publication.

Errata. The journal publishes Errata, in which authors correct significant errors of substance in their published manuscripts. The title should read: “Erratum: <original title> [Appl. Phys. Rev., vol. <number>, page <number> (<year>)]”. This is followed by the authors' names and institutions and the text of the corrected version. Errata should be clear and concise.

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 of our content. 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.

Transfers

If your manuscript is not accepted for publication in APR, an editor may recommend a transfer to another AIP Publishing journal for immediate consideration. 

If you wish to transfer your manuscript to another AIP Publishing journal, please contact the APR editorial office to request a transfer. A list of AIP Publishing journals and descriptions can be found here. We offer this transfer service as a convenience to authors so that they do not have to resubmit a manuscript to another AIP Publishing journal. Carefully review the acceptance criteria for the journal you believe would be appropriate for your manuscript. All reviewer reports and editor recommendations will be transferred along with the manuscript. Manuscripts must meet the receiving journal’s acceptance criteria. Note that there is no guarantee that the receiving journal will publish a transferred manuscript.

Ethical Guidelines for Biological Research

Every research article submitted to Applied Physics Reviews reporting experiments on animals and/or humans must include a brief statement in the methods section identifying the institutional and/or licensing committee(s) approving the experiments. For all experiments involving human participants, the authors must also include an additional statement confirming informed consent was obtained from all participants, or provide a statement as to why this was not necessary.

Additional supporting documents can also be uploaded at the time you submit your manuscript.

Failure to meet the above requirements or to otherwise adhere to ethical standards in the use of animal test subjects may be grounds for manuscript rejection. Authors who would like more guidance on the accepted standards for human and animal subjects in research may consult the following documents:

* World Medical Associations's Declaration of Helsinki
* International Guiding Principles for Biomedical Research Involving Animals
* Guidelines for Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE)