Physical Review Applied Makes Its Debut

The first issue of the newest APS journal is now online.

February 27, 2014

APS’s newest journal published its inaugural set of papers on Thursday, February 27. Physical Review Applied is the society’s first publication dedicated to all fields of applied physics.

“Physical Review Applied was created to provide a home within the Physical Review family for those high-quality papers with a strong focus on applications that do not fit into the scope of the existing journals,” said Julie Kim-Zajonz, Managing Editor of the journal.

Physical Review editors launched the journal as a part of the society’s ongoing strategic plan to better reach industrial and applied physicists. Physical Review Applied fills a gap in journal coverage that had meant the rejection of nearly 1,000 otherwise high-quality manuscripts each year.

“Existing APS journals provide a strong representation in all physics disciplines except those involving applications,” said Troy Shinbrot, Editor of the journal. “Prior to PRApplied, many APS members who are very well respected and who do interesting and valuable work were forced to publish outside of the Physical Review family. These members now will have a home in PRApplied.”

Since announcing the first call for papers in mid-December, journal editors have received nearly 250 manuscripts.

“We have had a pleasantly broad gamut of submissions, and the first issue reflects this,” Kim-Zajonz said. “The seven papers not only cover a number of ‘traditional’ applied physics papers such as spintronics, electrochemistry, and graphene electrode design, but we are also publishing papers on biophysics [and] high-speed droplet formation.”

The first issue also features two Editorials, one highlighting of some of the first papers and one introducing the members of the editorial board.

In the coming years, the journal editors hope to further expand the scope of the journal to appeal to engineers as well.  

“We are looking forward to broad support in the traditional applied physics community, complemented by increased participation by engineers working on problems involving physics, as well as physicists working on engineering problems,” Shinbrot said.

Physical Review Applied