Sep 1 2015
Optica, The Optical Society’s newest journal, dedicated to rapidly disseminating the highest impact peer-reviewed research across the entire spectrum of optics and photonics, has celebrated its one-year anniversary.
In its first year, Optica has established itself as a trusted source for some of the best and most exciting work in the optics and photonics field, demonstrated by 45% growth in article downloads in 2015 so far and 1 in 6 articles being featured in mainstream media because of their broad appeal. Additionally, submissions are coming in at a rate three times higher than expected, indicating the popularity of the Journal amongst authors as a venue for sharing their highest impact work with the optics and photonics community.
As an Open Access publication that is committed to making the content freely available as soon as possible, all articles in the Journal are posted online as soon as they are ready— making Optica a forum for pioneering research to be swiftly accessed by the international community.
A further key to Optica’s success is its distinguished editorial board, who oversee a transparent and highly selective peer review process that ensures research published in Optica will make a significant impact on the community. Optica’s peer review process is completely driven by the authors’ peers as the editors are both respected experts and active scientists in the field of optics and photonics. In addition, the two-step review process, which includes a rapid 5-day initial review, provides authors with editorial decisions in a fraction of the time of other publications in the field.
“I’m very grateful to all of the editors, reviewers and authors for their ongoing support and efforts during the Journal’s first year,” said Alex Gaeta, Optica Editor-In-Chief. “As a result of the tremendous backing from the community, the Journal has exceeded all of the major milestones that we set out to achieve when we launched last July. I look forward to continuing to work with the strong editorial team to build on the current foundation and to further improve Optica in the years to come.”