About Journal of Optics

Journal of Optics™ publishes new experimental and theoretical research across all areas of pure and applied optics, both modern and classical. Research areas are categorised as:

• Nanophotonics and plasmonics
• Metamaterials and structured photonic materials
• Quantum photonics
• Biophotonics
• Light-matter interactions
• Nonlinear and ultrafast optics
• Propagation, diffraction and scattering
• Optical communication
• Integrated optics
• Photovoltaics and energy harvesting

We discourage incremental advances, purely numerical simulations without any validation, or research without a strong optics advance, e.g. computer algorithms applied to optical and imaging processes, equipment designs or material fabrication.

• High standards: Articles are rigorously peer reviewed by IOP Publishing’s global network of expert reviewers, supported by our top-level editorial board.
• Fast publication: We are committed to providing you with a fast, professional service to ensure rapid first decision, acceptance and publication times. Once accepted, your article will be accessible to readers within 24 hours and will include a citable DOI.
• Open Access: Journal of Optics offers authors the option to publish fully Open Access.
• Transfer opportunities: As well as accepting direct submissions, the journal also offers you a quick and easy solution to transfer your manuscript from another IOP Publishing journal if it does not fit that journal’s scope or significance criteria. Articles are transferred along with peer review reports to save time and avoid duplication of work for reviewers.
• Society owned: IOP Publishing is a leading society publisher of advanced physics research. Any profits generated by IOP Publishing are invested in the Institute of Physics, helping to support research, education and outreach around the world.

Journal of Optics welcomes submissions of the following article types:

• Research Papers: Articles of unrestricted length that report new research of outstanding quality and that make a significant advance in terms of the fundamental science or application of optics.
• Letters: Outstanding concise articles (strict length limit ≤ 3500 words), reporting important, new and timely developments. These articles should be deserving of priority review. Authors will also need to provide a letter of justification outlining reasons why the work is urgent and requires rapid publication.
• Topical Reviews: Written by leading researchers in their fields, these articles present the background to and overview of a particular field, and the current state of the art. Topical review articles are normally invited by the editors.
• Perspectives: commentaries on the impact of previously published work, or authoritative discussions on the future direction of a field, that are of notable interest to the community.
• PhD Tutorials: Background knowledge for an audience unfamiliar with the subject. Aimed at young researchers or more experienced researchers moving into a new field, tutorials give an introduction to the topic and are more didactic than a review article.
• Roadmaps: consisting of a series of formalised two-page sections (each 1,400 words with around 20 references), Roadmaps involve multiple authors and represent the individual visions of a selection of leading experts on the current status, challenges and future direction of the field. Typically, Roadmaps will have between 10-20 sections, depending on the breadth of the topic and should provide guidance for colleagues, funding agencies and government institutions. You can see examples of roadmaps previously published in Journal of Optics here.

Journal of Optics’ statement regarding the inclusion of potentially offensive or inappropriate imagery in submitted papers:

We ask authors to carefully consider both the subject matter and provenance of images included in their work before submitting to the journal. If the submitted images could be potentially offensive to the journal’s readership or violate copyright, Journal of Optics reserves the right to request that authors seek alternative images or other means to express the same results before the final version is published.

We work with our authors to help make their work as easy to discover as possible. Journal of Optics is currently included in the following abstracting and discovery services:

• Chemical Abstracts Service
• CNKI Scholar
• ESBCO Academic Search Alumni Edition
• ESBCO Academic Search Complete
• ESBCO Academic Search Elite
• ESBCO Academic Search Premier
• ESBCO Academic Search Ultimate
• ESBCO TOC Premier
• Ei Compendex
• INIS (International Nuclear Information System)
• Inspec
• NASA Astrophysics Data System
• PASCAL
• Scopus
• VINITI Abstracts Journal (Referativnvi Zhurnal)
• Web of Science (Science Citation Index, Science Citation Index Expanded, Current Contents – Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences, Current Contents – Engineering, Computing and Technology)