Guidelines for authors

Chinese Physics B, formerly titled Chinese Physics, is published monthly in English by the Chinese Physical Society (CPS) and IOP Publishing Ltd. It is an international academic journal, aiming to publish original papers and rapid communications reflecting creative and innovative achievements in physics worldwide, as well as review articles covering important accomplishments in frontiers of physics. The journal has been abstracted in international index systems including SCI and INSPEC.

Chinese Physics B accepts manuscripts that neither have been published in any form nor are currently under consideration for publication at any other journal. The manuscript should be prepared using Microsoft Word or LaTeX, including figures, photos, and tables (if any) arranged in appropriate place(s) in the text. The full manuscript should be sent to the editorial office through our electronic submission system. Meanwhile, the author's signed agreement of copyright transfer to CPS, whose form can be found and downloaded from the website, should be post-mailed, faxed, or e-mailed to the editorial office.

Chinese Physics B authors should ensure that articles meet the journal's ethical policy.

The items included in the manuscript should be arranged as follows:

  • Full title of the manuscript
  • Author's name
  • Author's affiliation
  • Abstract
  • Keywords, no more than four sets
  • PACS numbers, no more than four sets
  • Main text
  • Acknowledgements
  • Supporting organization(s), as a footnote on the first page
  • References.

Manuscripts

Written in concise and legible English without any mistake in grammar. Standard scientific terms should be used. Abbreviations and symbols used in the manuscripts should comply with the conventions approved by IUPAP or International Standards Organization. Abbreviations and symbols should be defined when they are introduced in the text for the first time. The SI system should be used for units of measurement throughout the text. After the author has read the final proof of the manuscript, or the manuscript has been already typeset, any requirement for further revising the manuscript will not be accepted.

Formulas

Formulas are preferred to be arranged into separate lines, and each one should be numbered sequentially by a serial number. Letters denoting variables in formulas are normally printed in italics. In particular, vectors and matrices should be given in bold face.

Figures

Must be of high quality and prepared in an appropriate size to fit one-column or two-column space of the paper to avoid scaling during the production process. Lines in the figure should be thicker than the lines of the frame. Letters and symbols in the figure should be consistent with the main text, and the standard fonts should be used for them. In multiple-part figures, the parts should be labeled using (a), (b), (c), etc., and each part should be described in the caption.

References

References cited in the manuscript should be listed at the end of the manuscript in a separated section titled References, and numbered consecutively according to their order of appearance in the main text. One reference item should contain only one reference. And each reference item should contain necessary information and meet the journal reference style requirement. For journal articles the following information should be provided: names of all authors, year of publication, name of the journal (use conventional abbreviations), volume, and page, for example:
[1] Meyer F 1974 Phys. Rev. B 9 3622
Reference to books should include name(s) of author(s), year of publication, full title, edition (omitted for the first edition), place of publisher, publication and page or chapter, for example:
[2] Bloembergen N 1965 Nonlinear Optics (New York: Benjamin) p.12

The author should reserve the original manuscript and the manuscript accession number. The manuscript may be sent to referees only when it meets the requirements mentioned above; otherwise, it will be returned to the author for modification. If the author is not informed that his manuscript is accepted four months after submitting his manuscript, he may treat it at will, but he should inform the editorial office of Chinese Physics B about the retreat.

Template for producing articles using LaTex.

Video guides to scientific writing

In this two-part video lecture, Professor Ling-An Wu from the Chinese Academy of Sciences presents a comprehensive guide to writing scientific papers in English. Having spent the early part of her life living in the UK, Wu returned to China where she has gained extensive experience in both optics and physics education. This lecture (delivered primarily in Mandarin) is aimed at graduate, postdoctoral and early career researchers who want to improve their ability to express scientific results in written English. Part one looks at the format and structure of scientific articles, while part two looks at common errors in written English.

Want further editing support?
IOP Editing Services, in partnership with Editage, provides professional editorial support for authors before submitting a manuscript at a reasonable price. Authors can choose from a range of options, including:

  • English-language editing
  • Translation services
  • Artwork preparation