Information for Contributors

Manuscript Submissions

To be published in JVST, the manuscript must: (1) present original findings, conclusions, or analysis that have not been published previously by the authors or others, (2) be free of errors and ambiguities, (3) support conclusions with data and analysis, (4) be written clearly, and (5) have high impact in its field, which must be within the scope of topics covered by the journal.

Manuscripts are accepted with the understanding that they have not been copyrighted, published, or accepted for publication elsewhere. A signed copyright transfer form is required for publication. Manuscripts must be in English, be double-spaced, and conform to the style consistent with papers published in JVST A and JVST B. Authors should use the same presentation of their name for all publications, which improves the searchability of your work.

Where to Submit Your Manuscript

Submit your manuscript for JVST A electronically to the journal’s online manuscript submission system, Peer X-Press. Revised manuscripts should also be submitted to Peer X-Press. Submissions should include a cover letter; revised submissions should include a letter providing specific responses to the reviewers’ report(s) and a list of changes made to the manuscript in response to the reviewers’ comments.

Manuscript Format

Acceptable manuscript file types are MS Word and LaTeX. For the initial submission/review process, a single PDF file including the text and figures is sufficient. This file should contain, in order, the following:

Title
Author names and affiliations
Abstract
Main text
Acknowledgements
Data Availability
Appendix (optional)
References

Figures and Tables should be embedded into the paper, close to their discussion in the text. Each figure should include all parts. For example, if a Figure contains three parts (a, b, c), then all parts must be displayed in the same Figure.

Upon revision, an MS Word or LaTeX file of the text, including any figures and tables and their captions, will be required.

Microsoft Word®

If preparing your manuscript in MS Word, please use the JVST Template for MS Word. The following guidelines will help to ensure prompt error-free publications that precisely reflect your intent:

• Equations need to be editable, so we recommend that you create them with the built-in Microsoft® Equation Editor included with your version of Word. If you wish to use Mathtype, check for compatibility at http://tinyurl.com/lzny753.
• Users of the Windows version of Word: Please embed all fonts.
• Users of Macintosh Word: Please save all files in DOCX format, as the use of DOC is not supported. Additionally, because font embedding is not possible, Mac Word users should limit their font selection to those available from the basic installation.
• Tables should be created with Word’s Insert Table function and placed within your paper. If the table has already been made, please be sure it has been made with Word’s Table features. Tables created with spaces or tabs will create problems and may be improperly typeset. To ensure your table is published as you wish, you must use Word’s Table function. All but the simplest tabular material should be organized into separate tables. Tables should be numbered with Roman numerals. Each table must have a caption set at the top of the table, which makes the data in the table understandable without reference to the text. Avoid complicated column headings. If necessary, use symbols that are explained in the caption. Very long tables, if possible, should be submitted in a form ready for reproduction.

LaTeX

For best results and full support when preparing your manuscript with LaTeX, we recommend that you use the AIP Publishing template in Overleaf (found at https://pubs.aip.org/avs/jva/pages/latex). Once the manuscript is prepared, authors may download either the PDF of the manuscript (best for initial submissions) or a .zip file containing the .tex file of the manuscript. The PDF and the .tex file can then be uploaded into Peer X-Press.

LaTeX Support

Support with using the AIP Publishing LaTeX template for AVS journals is provided by Overleaf. If you are having LaTeX issues and did not use the provided template, please upload your project files into the AIP Publishing template in Overleaf. If you choose not to use this template, you can seek outside support from community-based help forums, such as https://tex.stackexchange.com or http://latex.org/forum/.

English-language Editing

AIP Publishing and JVST A recommend that authors use AIP Author Services to improve the quality of your written English so editors and reviewers can fully understand your research. Note that this is not a requirement or a guarantee of acceptance for review or publication.

Content

Articles:

These are original research reports submitted by authors comprising a complete, detailed, self-contained description of a research effort. All Articles must contain an abstract.

Review Articles:

These are typically solicited by the Editor and provide an update of an area of science or technology pertinent to the scope of this journal. All Review Articles must contain an abstract.

Roadmap

A Roadmap is a type of review and/or perspective article that focuses on the status, advances, challenges, and future directions of subtopics within a field. Roadmaps should provide a high-level overview of the field as a whole and should be composed when there is a need or opportunity for useful discussion and evaluation of the field. Proposed roadmap articles should be discussed with the editors prior to submission. Please contact publications@avs.org with proposals.

Comments:

These are meant to correct significant errors in articles published in the journal, to rebut conclusions reached, or to provide additional insight or corroboration. Comments must address scientific issues only and be concise, substantive, and contain no harsh criticism. We discourage Comments on questions of priority. Generally, the editor will invite the authors of the targeted Comment to respond. The editor may decide to accept Comments and Responses, if any, for publication only after the two parties have submitted final versions of their pieces. The editor reserves the right to send Comments and Responses to an adjudicator or to reject one or both for publication.

Letters:

These are short submissions that contain important new results and are intended for faster publication. Letters are given priority handling. While there is no page limit, typical letters are 3-4 printed pages and have fewer than five figures.

Perspectives:

Perspective papers summarize a new or timely research area that is of interest to the Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology. They should be self-contained, written for the non-expert, and focused on the most important discoveries and phenomena. Perspective articles should finish with an outlook on future research direction. Perspectives are solicited by the Editors.

Style

Manuscript Text:

Please use the MS Word and LaTeX templates (linked above) for preparing your manuscript. The easiest way to prepare your manuscript is to download the template and delete and replace the text. These files also contain tips on style and how to organize your article and information.

Abstracts:

An abstract must accompany each article. It should be a summary of the article, major findings, and advances. It should also give the conclusions of the article and numerical results of general interest. An abstract is usually reused verbatim in abstracting and indexing services. Therefore, great care should be used in writing it.

Figures:

Size your figures in the final size you wish them to appear in the journal, not oversized or undersized. The standard is 8.5-cm maximum width (3-3/8” or 20.5 picas) for a one column figure. Ensure a minimum of 8-point type size (2.8 mm high; 1/8” high) and that line weights will be 0.5 points or greater in the final published size. Be consistent with lettering within individual figures and from one figure to the next. All panels in multi-panel figures should be labeled as a, b, c, etc. The labels should be placed in one of the corners and clearly visible. Each panel should be described in the figure caption, referring to the panel labels. Carefully plan your panel layout, noting that most figures are published in one column width (3 3/8" wide). If you need to publish any figure as double column, please prepare them 6 3/4” wide, and state which figures you wish to publish as double column in your cover letter. Consider that it may be better to arrange the panels on multi-panel figures vertically rather than side by side. This would ensure their readability when reduced to single column width. Please minimize white space between the panels and ensure that the production-quality figures are at least 600 dpi.

Figures must be inserted directly into your manuscript file. For the initial submission/review process, a single PDF file including the text and figures is sufficient. Upon revision, an MS Word or LaTeX file of the text, including any figures and tables and their captions, will be required. For authors preparing their manuscript with LaTeX, a PDF containing the text and any figures and tables will also be required.

Required Highlight Image:

To establish a strong and consistent visual identity for your article, a highlight image is required with your submission. It can be either a figure from your paper or another image you create that reflects your work. Your highlight image effectively represents your article online.

This image should be in an aspect ratio of 16:9. Acceptable file types for the highlight image are SVG, EPS, TIFF, and JPEG. Your highlight image will display above your article title in the Table of Contents online.

Video Abstract Submissions:

Authors may provide a video abstract with their submission.

• A video abstract provides a brief overview of what is discussed in the article in the format of a short video.
• It is a supplement to the abstract and does not replace the abstract.
• Editors will review all video abstracts and may recommend revisions.
• The review process for invited manuscripts will not change if you provide a video abstract.
• Referees have the option to comment on the video abstract and all supplementary materials.
• Video abstracts will be embedded directly into the HTML version of your article.
• They can be viewed seamlessly with the click of a button.
• There is no need to download any additional software or make any changes to your browser.

Requirements:

• MP4 is the preferred format for video abstracts. Please follow these specifications: Codec: H.264 aka MPEG-4 AVC or MPEG-4 Part 10 Audio Codec: AAC
• AVI, MOV, MPEG, MPG, QT, and WMV will also be accepted.
• Videos must be less than 20 MB and have an aspect ratio of 16:9 or 4:3.
• To include a video abstract with your article, please upload it during your submission and designate the file type as “Video Abstract”.

Mathematical Expressions:

Mathematical expressions should be typeset as completely as possible, using Unicode characters for all symbols, variables, and operators. Equations should be typed on a separate line but grammatically treated as a part of the sentence. They should be punctuated and aligned to bring out their structure and numbered on the right. Choose fonts that clearly distinguish capital and lowercase letters to avoid confusion. Use fractional exponents to avoid root signs. Extra symbols should be introduced to avoid complicated exponents or, where it is necessary, to repeat a complicated expression a number of times. Use the solidus (/)for fractions wherever possible. Do not repeat mathematical derivations that are easily found elsewhere in the literature; cite the references instead. Mathematical operation signs indicating continuity of the expression should be placed at the left of the second and succeeding lines. Use × rather than a centered dot, except for scalar products of vectors. Please use “exp” for complicated exponents.

References:

References should be listed at the end of the manuscript and numbered consecutively. Various types of references in AVS style are shown below. Further examples can be found in the Article Template linked above.

¹D. A. Oulianov, R. A. Crowell, D. J. Gosztola, I. A. Shkrob, O. J. Korovyanko, and R. C. Rey-de-Castro, J. Appl. Phys. 101, 053102 (2007).

²A. J. Elliot, “Rate constants and G-Values for the simulation of the radiolysis of light water over the range 0-300C,” AECL Report No. 11073, Chalk River Laboratories, Chalk River, Ontario, Canada (1994).

³Y. Tabata, I. Itoh, and S. Tagawa, CRC Handbook of Radiation Chemistry (CRC Press, Boca Raton, 1991).

⁴Y. Young, Physics in Today’s World, edited by A. Newman (Springer, New York, 1999), Vol. 2, pp. 62–68.

⁵J. Nelson, U.S. Patent No. 5,693,000 (12 December 2005).

A list of the abbreviations for the names of journals can be found here.

Native language characters available for author names:

Authors may choose to have their names published in their native language, alongside the English versions of their names, in the author list of their publications. To participate in this free service, authors must include the native language characters within the author list of their manuscripts, and indicate in the submission form that native language characters are present and identify the language from a drop-down list. The publisher does not offer a translation service and will not insert names; this is the author’s responsibility. Please be sure to check the PDF produced by the submission software to ensure that the characters were processed correctly.

Author Declarations

Authors are required to include a Conflict of Interest statement and, if required, an Ethics Approval statement. Effective November 2021, Conflict of Interest disclosure statements are required for every manuscript, while ethics approval statements are required for research article submissions that include experiments using animals and/or human subjects.

Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest is any personal interest or relationship that may be affected by publication of the submitted manuscript. A conflict of interest may exist from owning a patent or stock; being a member of a board of directors, advisory board, or committee for a company; receiving speaker or consultancy honoraria; etc. All potential conflicts directly related to the submitted work should be disclosed and any conflict arising from three years before the start of the work should be disclosed.

If there are no conflicts to report, the authors must state that they have no conflicts to disclose.

Examples of conflict of interest disclosure statements, including financial and non-financial interests and intellectual property, are given below:

Financial interests

• {Author’s initials or name}reports grant(s) from {name of organization} and speaking honoraria for {insert name of organization} during the conduct of the study.
• {Author’s initials or name}reports personal fees from {name of organization} outside the submitted work.
• {Author’s initials or name}is a paid consultant for {name of organization} and owns stock in {name of company}.

Non-financial interests

• {Author’s initials or name}is an unpaid member of {name of organization}.
• {Author’s initials or name}is on the advisory board of {name of organization}.

Intellectual property

• {Author’s initials or name}has Patent {patent number} {pending/issued/licensed}.

No conflicts of interest

• The authors have no conflicts to disclose.

For more information on conflicts of interest, please see AIP Publishing’s policy and the conflict of interest disclosure form provided by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)

• AIP Publishing: https://publishing.aip.org/resources/researchers/policies-and-ethics/conflict-of-interests/
• ICMJE: http://www.icmje.org/conflicts-of-interest/

Ethics Approval

Any research article containing experiments using animals and/or human subjects must include a statement that the authors obtained ethics approval. Ethics approval statements must include the institutional and/or licensing committee(s) approving the experiments.

For research using human participants, the statement must indicate that informed consent was obtained from all participants or 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 Association’s Declaration of Helsinki
• International Guiding Principles for Biomedical Research Involving Animals
• Guidelines for Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE)

Author Contributions

• A list of authors and their specific contributions, known as a CRediT (Contribution Role Taxonomy) Statement, is now required for all submissions in accordance with the NISO standard.
• Please see the CRediT portion of our Ethics and Policy page for more information and how to develop this statement.
• The Corresponding author is responsible for providing accurate contribution descriptions for each author listed on the manuscript. Also, they must ensure that all authors have reviewed, discussed, and agreed to the complete statement.
• CrediT statements will be published as part of the article, appearing in the Author Contribution section in the full text view and pdf/version of record.

Supplementary Material

Data, tables, and/or text that are too long or may be of limited interest to readers may be included as Supplementary Material. AIP Publishing has partnered with Figshare to host all supplementary materials. After your manuscript has been accepted, AIP Publishing will deposit your supplementary material in Figshare on your behalf. All materials will be assigned digital object identifiers (DOIs) for citation and referencing. This simple process increases the discoverability of your materials and helps you share it more broadly without additional effort. Please note that supplementary material is not edited after acceptance and will be posted to Figshare in its original file format (if a MS Word file is submitted, the file available to readers will be a MS Word file).

If your submission includes Supplementary Material, please describe your materials in a section titled “Supplementary Material” placed before your Acknowledgements. Then, throughout your manuscript, any mention of this material should use the phrase “supplementary material.” The phrase will then be linked to your material in Figshare.

Additional information can be found here.

Data Availability

Your manuscript must include a data availability statement. The data statement of your choice should be placed after the Acknowledgments and before the References and titled “Data Availability”. When data is available elsewhere, provide a citation of the data in your reference list. For instructions and templates on how to create your statement and reference, please visit https://publishing.aip.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/AIPP-DataAvailability-Jan2020-003.pdf.

Open Access

During submission, authors can indicate if they would like the article to publish as open access. There is a $2200 fee for open access.

Note that there are no page charges required for publishing under the AVS copyright.

Correspondence

The AVS Publications Office can be contacted by email, publications@avs.org, through mail at AVS Publications Office, 51 Kilmayne Drive, Suite 201, Cary, NC 27511, or by phone: 919-361-2787. However, all manuscripts must be submitted to Peer X-Press.

If your paper is accepted for publication, you will be notified by the Editor. Accepted papers are sent to AIP Publishing LLC for production. Correspondence about proofs and links for reprints and publication charges will be sent to the author during the production stage from AIP Publishing LLC. Send all correspondence about the production of your paper to jvsta@aippublishing.org or AVS Journals, AIP Publishing LLC, 1305 Walt Whitman Road, Suite 110, Melville, NY 11747. Include the AIPP paper number, author, and journal in your correspondence.

Proofs of processed manuscripts

After AIP Publishing creates the pages of your manuscript, you will receive an email with a URL and PIN to download the proof. There are instructions for downloading and returning your proof on that website. Although a few corrections in a proof are unavoidable, the cost of making extensive changes or of correcting mistakes caused by careless preparation of the manuscript will be charged to the author. Unless corrected proofs are returned punctually, your paper will be published in uncorrected form and will be so labeled.

Author Responsibilities

As a Member Society of the American Institute of Physics (AIP) and as a close partner, AVS adheres to AIP’s policies outlined in their statement of ethics and responsibilities for authors submitting to AVS journals.

Web Posting Guidelines and Statement of Ethics

As a Member Society of the American Institute of Physics (AIP) and as a close partner, AVS adheres to the policies outlined by AIP in their statement of ethics and responsibilities of authors submitting to AVS Journals.

View Web Posting Guidelines.