Information for Contributors

Where to Submit Your Manuscript | Contact Editorial Office | Statement of Ethics and Responsibilities of Authors
Open Access | Accepted Manuscripts | How to Prepare Your Manuscript | English Language Editing Assistance
| Multimedia | Supplemental Material | Free Color Online
How to Prepare Your Illustrations | Estimating Length | Manuscript Preparation Checklist
APL Style Files | Sample Manuscript

Read APL's General Editorial Policies

Where to Submit Your Manuscript

Submit manuscripts via Peer X-Press, the journal's online manuscript submission system, located at http://apl.peerx-press.org.

Author instructions are available through a link after you successfully log into Peer X-Press. After registering and submitting information and files, you may use Peer X-Press to check on the status of your manuscript throughout the peer review process.

Submission Mode:

Manuscript materials should be submitted to the journal only in the following manner. Alternatives cannot be routinely accommodated. At least a cover-letter file must be uploaded; no more than one manuscript or article-text file should be uploaded. Via Peer X-Press, upload separate, individual files for the cover letter, article text (including title, byline, abstract, main text, appendices, references, tables, and list of figure captions), and each figure.

A cover letter should specify authors, title, Journal, the corresponding author's e-mail address, and any special requests. Unless otherwise stated, submission of a manuscript will be understood to mean that the paper has been neither copyrighted, classified, published, nor is being considered for publication elsewhere.

Agreement to the terms of AIP’s Transfer of Copyright Agreement form is required for publication in this journal. No claim is made to original U.S. Government works. When submitting your original or revised manuscript to the journal's online submission site (http://apl.peerx-press.org), you will be able to provide electronic consent to the Transfer of Copyright Agreement.

We welcome suggestions of possible reviewers. To help protect the reviewer's anonymity, we ask for at least four names, with full information on postal and e-mail addresses, telephone number, and fax number. The referee selected by the Editor may, of course, not necessarily be from the list.

The Editor strongly prefers to correspond directly with the author, rather than through the reports division or through executives of the author's laboratory. Manuscripts sent to authors for revision should be returned to the Editor within two months. A manuscript returned later than this will generally be regarded as newly submitted and will receive a new receipt date.

To support the cost of wide dissemination of research results through publication of journal pages and production of a database of articles, the author's institution is requested to pay a page charge and an article charge. For additional information, follow this link to Publication Charges.

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Contact the Editorial Office

Contact the Editorial Office for Applied Physics Letters at:

Applied Physics Letters
American Institute of Physics
Suite 1NO1
2 Huntington Quadrangle
Melville, NY 11747-4502, USA

Telephone: 516-576-2344
E-mail: apl-edoffice@aip.org

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Statement of Ethics and Responsibilities of Authors Submitting to AIP Journals

This journal is published as part of the charter of its publisher, the American Institute of Physics (AIP), to advance and diffuse knowledge of the science of physics and its applications to human welfare. To that end, it is essential that all who participate in producing the journal conduct themselves as authors, reviewers, editors, and publishers in accord with the highest level of professional ethics and standards.

A detailed statement of what this journal expects is available here.

By submitting a manuscript to this journal, each author implicitly confirms that it meets the highest ethical standards.

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Open Access

Through participation in Author Select®, authors may choose open access for their published article. By supporting both publication and archiving costs through payment of a $2200 fee, authors may instruct the journal to provide free online access to the published article, in perpetuity, to any online user. A subscription to the online journal will not be required to access full-text versions of these open access articles. See details about Author Select and look for information during manuscript submission.

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Accepted Manuscripts

Authors whose manuscripts have been accepted for publication will receive correspondence informing them of the issue for which it is tentatively scheduled. Date of publication may be before the cover date of the issue. Authors may access publication data for their manuscripts online through AIP's AMSIS service.

Proofs and all subsequent correspondence pertaining to papers in the production process should be addressed to:

Editorial Supervisor
Applied Physics Letters
American Institute of Physics
Suite 1NO1
2 Huntington Quadrangle
Melville, NY 11747-4502, USA

Telephone: +1 516-576-2345/2371/2417
Fax: +1 516-576-2233
E-mail: apl@aip.org

Reference must be made to the AIP identification number (e.g., 001201APL), title, author, and scheduled issue date. A limited number of alterations in proof are unavoidable, but the cost of making extensive alterations after the article has been typeset may be charged to the author. Please do not address correspondence about proofs, reprints, artwork, publication charges, color printing charges, etc., to the Editor. To do so simply delays the appropriate action and response.

Through AIP's Accepted Manuscript Status Inquiry System (AMSIS), authors may access information about significant milestones for their accepted manuscript during the production process at AIP. AMSIS can be used only by authors of accepted manuscripts; authors will use Peer X-Press to monitor their submitted manuscripts during peer review.

General information regarding publication and color charges, and similar material may be found on the Journal Masthead of each printed issue.

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How to Prepare Your Manuscript

English Language Editing Assistance

AIP recommends Edanz for authors who wish to have the language in their manuscripts edited by a native-English-speaking language editor who is also a scientific expert. Edanz is a global editing service with offices in Japan and China. Use of an editing service is neither a requirement nor a guarantee of acceptance for publication. Please contact Edanz directly to make arrangements for editing and to receive a quotation regarding price and time.

For general format and style, consult recent issues of the journal. Link to the journal’s General Editorial Policies here.

Acceptable manuscript file types include Word, LaTeX, and PDF. PDF is acceptable for the review process only and a source Word or LaTex file is required for production. For authors who use LaTeX, REVTeX 4.1 is now available and includes style files for AIP journals and associated instructions. REVTeX 4.1 is available here.

Note for TeX users:

Please note that AIP does not compose/typeset pages in TeX. Instead we use the generic markup language XML (Extensible Markup Language). As a result, the format and layout, especially math, may look somewhat different to what was originally created in TeX.

While we appreciate the benefits to authors of preparing manuscripts in TeX, especially for math-intensive manuscripts, it is neither a cost-effective composition tool (for the volume of pages AIP currently produces) nor is it a format that can be used effectively for online publishing.

XML is critical to ensure that online content is discoverable, searchable, and accessible well into the future. It is a W3C standard that has been adopted by many publishers as well as by many software industry market leaders. Information in XML can be processed easily by computers and is both hardware and software independent. Tagged XML data is an ideal archive format as identification and extraction of specific content for reuse is relatively easy. A single XML source file is generated from authors’ TeX or Word files and feeds our entire process. All end-products and deliverables, whether print or electronic, are derived from this single XML file, reducing the chance of errors or inconsistencies.

The Manuscript, including the abstract, references, and captions, should be set up for 21.6 x 28 cm (8-1/2 x 11 in. or A4) pages with ample margins. It should be carefully proofread by the author. The manuscript must be in good scientific American English; this is the author's responsibility. Number all pages in single sequence beginning with the title and abstract page. The title page should contain the title of the article, the names and affiliations of the authors, and a short abstract. Parts of the manuscript should be arranged in the following order: title, author, affiliation, abstract, text, acknowledgments, appendices, and references. Figures, with figure captions, may be embedded within the manuscript to assist the reviewers. Papers should not be lengthened by unnecessary descriptions and repetitions, but neither should authors use a telegraphic style detrimental to the clarity and understanding of the paper.

Manuscripts should not exceed 3500 words (approximately four printed journal pages). Abstract, title, author list, references and acknowledgements are all excluded from the length limit of 3500 words. Figures, tables and equations however are included and must be accounted for. Please use the guidelines for Estimating Length. Circumvention of the length limitation by division of a long article into small parts is considered to be contrary to the purpose of this journal.

A section on Comments is available for criticism or additions to Letters already in print. A Response will normally be solicited to a critical Comment. Both Comments and Responses should contain 1000 words or less.

The title of a paper should be as concise as possible but informative enough to facilitate information retrieval. For series publications of closely related papers, the descriptor “Part I,” or simply “I,” will not be included as part of the title of an article unless Part II has already been submitted for publication in the Journal. Part III, IV, etc., are likewise unacceptable unless the prior parts have already been accepted or have appeared in this Journal, and are properly identified in the references.
Acronyms are not allowed in the title. They should be used with considerable moderation elsewhere.

The Abstract should be limited to about 100 words and should be self-contained (contain no footnotes). It should be adequate as an index (giving all subjects, major and minor, about which new information is given), and as a summary (giving the conclusions and all results of general interest in the article). The abstract should be written as one paragraph and should not contain displayed mathematical equations or tabular material.

Authors' names should preferably be written in a standard form for all publications to facilitate indexing and avoid ambiguities.

Authors with Chinese, Japanese, or Korean names may choose to have their names published in their own language alongside the English versions of their names in the author list of their publications. For Chinese, authors may use either Simplified or Traditional characters. Chinese, Japanese, or Korean characters must be included within the author list of the manuscript when submitting or resubmitting. The manuscript must be prepared using Microsoft Word or using the CJK LaTeX package. Specific guidelines for each authoring tool are given here. To ensure that we have processed the manuscript files correctly, you must proof the PDF of the manuscript as produced by the Peer X-Press system on first submission. In addition, it is essential that you check carefully any production proofs you receive prior to the publication of your paper.

Equations should be punctuated and aligned to bring out their structure and numbered on the right. 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. The solidus (/) should be used instead of built up fractions in running text, and in display wherever clarity would not be jeopardized. Use "exp" for complicated exponents.

Notation must be legible, clear, compact, and consistent with standard usage. All unusual symbols whose identity may not be obvious must be identified the first time they appear, and at all subsequent times when confusion might arise. Superscripts are normally set directly over subscripts; authors should note where readability or the meaning requires a special order.

References and footnotes are treated alike. They must be numbered consecutively in order of first appearance in the text and should be given in a separate double-spaced list at the end of the text material. Reference should be made to the full list of authors, rather than to first author followed by an abbreviation such as et al. References within tables should be designated by lowercase Roman letter superscripts and given at the end of the table. For the proper form, see recent issues of this journal. Preprints of cited unpublished work by the authors should be sent with the manuscript.

Separate Tables (numbered with Roman numerals in the order of their appearance in the text) should be used for all but the simplest tabular material; they should have captions that make the tables intelligible without reference to the text. The structure should be clear, with simple column headings giving all units. Unaltered computer output and notation are generally unacceptable.

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AUTHOR GUIDELINES FOR MULTIMEDIA SUBMISSIONS

Multimedia files can be included in the online version of published papers. These multimedia files can be viewed by simply clicking on a link in the paper, provided the reader has a video player, such as Windows Media Player^TM, QuickTime Player^TM, or RealOne Player^TM installed.

Please adhere to the following guidelines when preparing multimedia files for submission:

• When incorporating multimedia, note that the paper should be written so that the print version can be understood on its own.
• Submit all multimedia files initially with the manuscript.
• Treat all multimedia files as figures, numbered in sequence as they are referred to in text. (Multimedia files will not have a numbering scheme separate from the figures.)
• All multimedia files must be cited in the text, referred to by their figure number.
• For each multimedia file, provide a figure, which is a static representation of the multimedia file. Also provide an accompanying caption. At the end of the caption, include the phrase, "(enhanced online)."
• Video and other enhanced files should be in a format that the majority of readers can view without too much difficulty. See the multimedia guidelines here for specific submission requirements.

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Supplemental Material

Supplemental files may be of two types:

• Files to aid the reviewer and not for publication.
• Supplementary information for publication alongside the manuscript.

Appropriate items for publication as supplemental material include; multimedia (e.g., movie files, audio files, 3D rendering files), data tables, and text (e.g., appendices) that are too lengthy or of too limited interest for inclusion in the article. Links (URLs) in the online (printed) journal article allow users to navigate directly to the associated files. Note that subdirectories (folders) are not acceptable. Name files appropriately, so that all files can reside at the root directory, allowing successful linking between the published paper and its associated supplemental material.

All supplemental material must be approved by the Journal Editor as part of a manuscript's normal review cycle, and must be listed in the reference section as follows: "See supplementary material at [URL will be inserted by AIP] for [give brief description of material]."

For additional information about depositing or retrieving EPAPS files, see the Supplemental Material homepage.

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Free Color Online

If authors supply usable color graphics files in time for the production process, color will appear in the online journal free of charge. A usable color graphics file must be in one of the following formats: Encapsulated PostScript (.eps), PostScript (.ps), Tagged Image File Format (.tif), and Portable Document Format (.pdf)

In order to maintain online color as a free service to authors, the journal cannot accept multiple versions of the same graphics file. Authors may not submit two versions of the same illustration (e.g., one for color and one for black & white). When preparing illustrations that will appear in color in the online journal and in black & white in the printed journal, authors must ensure that: (i) colors chosen will reproduce well when printed in black & white and (ii) descriptions of figures in text and captions will be sufficiently clear for both print and online versions. This is the author’s responsibility.

If usable color graphics files are received in time for the production process, authors will see color versions of those illustrations when viewing their author proofs. (The Corresponding Author will receive e-mail notification from AIP when the proof, as a PDF file, is available for downloading.)

Although figures will appear in color online, the printed version of the article will contain black-and-white images. Therefore, a descriptive term other than a color is needed in the caption to support the data of discussion. For example, instead of “the red and blue symbols” write “the red circles and blue squares.” By adding the descriptive terms “circles” and “squares” the print reader, seeing the image in black and white, would have a clearer picture as to what is being explained in the figure.

The procedures for obtaining color in the printed journal remain unchanged. Authors or their institutions must bear the cost of any color they wish to use in print. See information about color printing charges here.

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How to Prepare Your Illustrations

For best results, please adhere to these guidelines when preparing your illustrations for submission.

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Estimating length

Manuscripts should not exceed 3500 words.

TeX users

Authors are advised to use the REVTeX 4.1 APL style file. If the double-column version of the manuscript obtained using the "reprint" option fits on four pages, the length is acceptable.

Word users

Highlight the manuscript text, excluding abstract, author list, acknowledgements and references, and note the word count at the bottom of the screen. Add to that the word-count-equivalents for figures, tables and equations as follows:

Figures: An average single-column figure will displace 220 words. For a more accurate estimation, use the following: [(150/aspect ratio) + 20 words] for single-column figures, and [(300/(0.5 x aspect ratio)) + 40 words] for double-column figures. Aspect ratio = width/height.

Tables: 6.5 words per line, plus 13 words for single-column tables. 13 words per line, plus 26 words for double-column tables.

Equations: 16 words per row for single-column equations. 32 words per row for double-column equations.

If the total number of words (text + figures + tables + equations) is 3500 or less, the length is acceptable.

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Manuscript Preparation Checklist

Use this checklist to avoid the most common mechanical errors in submitted manuscripts:

1. The manuscript must be double-spaced throughout.
2. Number all pages in single sequence.
3. Type references in the style used by this journal.
4. Submit cover letter, manuscript file, illustration files, and any supplemental files via Peer X-Press, the journal's online submission system, located at http://apl.peerx-press.org.
5. The original figures must be in the final published size, not oversized.
6. When submitting your original or revised manuscript to the journal’s online submission site (http://apl.peerx-press.org), please provide electronic consent to the Transfer of Copyright Agreement.
7. Obtain permission for reuse of any previously published material and include proper citation information within manuscript. For guidelines and blank form click here.

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