Celebrating Applied Sciences’s 20,000 Articles Milestone: Invited Papers in the Optics and Lasers Section

Dear Colleagues,

Applied Sciences is going to reach a remarkable milestone by publishing its 20,000th article. In celebration of this special occasion, we have taken the initiative to launch a Special Issue called “Celebrating Applied Sciences’s 20,000 Articles Milestone: Invited Papers in the Optics and Lasers Section.”

In 2014, when we received our first impact factor for Applied Sciences, we published 35 manuscripts from 53 submissions, i.e., the acceptance rate was roughly 66%. However, we have now significantly improved the review quality; hence, in 2018, we published 2703 manuscripts from 9757 submissions, keeping the acceptance rate below 28%. This reasonably gave us an impact factor jump from 1.484 in 2014 to 2.217 in 2018. We have also reduced the manuscript turnaround time; presently, the median publication time is only 37 days, which will be further reduced in the coming days, and we hope to increase the impact factor to above 3.0 by 2021.

Among all sections of Applied Sciences, the “Optics and Lasers” section is doing extremely well, it appears, with 1775 articles published so far and 130 Special Issues. On this occasion, we would like to thank all our Editorial Board Members, Managing Editors, Reviewers, and Authors for their great contributions and continuous support. Please help us to celebrate our 20,000th article milestones by submitting your review article to this Special Issue.

As Editor in the section, I am thrilled to see a continuing recognition of optical sciences getting stronger from 2015, the “Year of Light” (UNESCO). The most recent recognition of chirped pulse amplification (Nobel prize 2018) paved the way for high intensity lasers which are used for frontier science, and now are advancing to applied science of 3D laser machining/printing, generation of practical sources for THz, X-rays, deep-UV radiation. Laser tweezers (the same Nobel prize 2018) are on the same trajectory of becoming a versatile tool used to probe nano-micro-scale interactions, mechanics, and chemistry.  Applied science has its strength via its multi-disciplinary character. Photonics and optics is truly becoming one of the technology drivers in telecom, computing, sensors, and energy and justifies its role as one of the key drivers of the fourth industrial revolution, blending different sciences.

We would like to invite you to contribute a comprehensive review article or an original research paper for peer review and possible publication.

Prof. Dr. Saulius Juodkazis
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.