Launched in February 2014, Physical Review Applied (PRApplied) has entered its third year of publication and has reached an important milestone—its first impact factor. While we acknowledge that the impact factor is not the only measure of a journal’s quality and influence, it is nevertheless a significant and widely recognized indicator of a journal’s success. We are delighted therefore to announce that PRApplied has received a debut impact factor of 4.061: a strong endorsement by the community that puts a society-based journal into a leading position in applied physics.
All of us at PRApplied congratulate and thank our authors and reviewers: it was your hard work that led to this achievement. We depend entirely on your contributions, and we invite feedback from both authors and readers on what we have done right, what we have done wrong, and how we can better serve the community. Please send us a note to prapplied@aps.org with your thoughts.
Moving forward, we recognize that applied physics involves an evolving set of topics, and we at PRApplied are committed to being responsive to changes in the field. Accordingly, we have identified three focus areas where we plan to grow: biophysics, quantum computing, and energy physics. We continue to invite papers in all areas of applied physics, and we especially encourage authors in these focus areas to consider PRApplied their publishing home.
On a final personal note, I thank our outstanding Managing Editor, Julie Kim-Zajonz, and Associate Editor, Matt Eager, as well as the seldom recognized but indispensable Physical Review support staff for their tireless and vital work. I also thank those with the foresight to have established PRApplied as a forum for publishing high-quality research at the intersection between physics and engineering. Our first impact factor is one indication that the journal has achieved that goal. We again congratulate our authors, referees, and editorial board for their hard work and dedication that has led to this point, and we look forward to publishing great advances that are sure to come in the field of applied physics.
Troy Shinbrot
Editor
Published 13 June 2016
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevApplied.5.060001
