ACS Launches New Journal

The American Chemical Society plans to begin publishing a new journal, ACS Photonics, and the first full issue is scheduled for release in January 2014. The monthly, online-only journal will focus on research in the field of photonics, the study of the interaction of light with matter.

The journal’s inaugural editor-in-chief will be Harry A. Atwater Jr., the Howard Hughes Professor and professor of applied physics and materials science at California Institute of Technology. He is a pioneer in the fields of nanophotonics and plasmonics and the director of the Department of Energy’s Energy Frontier Research Center on Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion and of the Resnick Sustainability Institute.

“Many of the most important challenges facing science and technology are fundamentally optical in nature, spanning primary scientific disciplines such as physics, chemistry, and engineering,” Atwater says. “ACS Photonics aims to promote cross-fertilization between these fields and bridge the gaps between different approaches to photonics.”

“Photonics has been identified as a key enabling technology worldwide,” notes Susan King, senior vice president of the ACS Journals Publishing Group.

The journal will accept manuscript submissions this month and publish individual articles beginning this fall. ACS also publishes C&EN.

ACS Photonics will aim for rapid publication, free of required author fees. It will offer open-access options for a fee.