Publication Guide
AIP Publishing is the scholarly publishing arm of the American Institute of Physics, a nonprofit federation founded in 1931. Organized as a wholly-owned subsidiary (AIP Publishing LLC) in 2013 and headquartered in Melville, New York, it publishes a focused portfolio of 40+ journals - its own titles plus partner journals - covering applied physics, chemical physics, fluid dynamics, plasma physics, materials, photonics, and scientific instrumentation. If your work sits in the applied end of the physical sciences, AIP Publishing titles such as Applied Physics Letters and The Journal of Chemical Physics are among the most established venues in the field.
This guide covers how to pick the right AIP journal, what each family of titles publishes, the open-access routes and actual APC numbers, the peer review workflow, and how submission works.
Which AIP Publishing journal fits your paper?
| You're most likely to... | Choose this route |
|---|---|
| Have a short, high-impact applied-physics result | Applied Physics Letters (APL) - the flagship letters journal; concise papers (~3,000 words at submission) across all of applied physics. |
| Have a full-length applied-physics study | Journal of Applied Physics - the archival companion to APL for complete reports of significant new work. |
| Work in chemical physics or theoretical chemistry | The Journal of Chemical Physics (JCP) - the field's core venue since 1933. |
| Work in fluid dynamics | Physics of Fluids - one of the largest and most cited fluids journals. |
| Work in plasma physics or fusion | Physics of Plasmas - the leading dedicated plasma-physics journal. |
| Describe a new instrument, method, or apparatus | Review of Scientific Instruments - instrumentation and experimental technique papers. |
| Need a broad-scope Gold OA venue with a lower APC | AIP Advances - fully open access across all physical sciences, APC $1,800. |
| Work in materials, photonics, energy, quantum, bioengineering, or machine learning for science | The APL family - APL Materials, APL Photonics, APL Energy, APL Quantum, APL Bioengineering, APL Machine Learning (fully OA, APC $2,750). |
What AIP Publishing actually publishes
- Flagship subscription titles - Applied Physics Letters, Journal of Applied Physics, The Journal of Chemical Physics, Physics of Fluids, Physics of Plasmas, Review of Scientific Instruments, and Chaos (nonlinear science). These are hybrid journals: free to publish under the subscription route, with an optional open-access upgrade.
- Gold open-access titles - roughly 12 fully-OA journals, led by AIP Advances and the newer APL-branded family (APL Materials, APL Photonics, APL Energy, APL Quantum, APL Bioengineering, APL Machine Learning).
- Partner and diamond OA journals - titles published on behalf of societies and institutions, several of which are diamond OA with no author charges (for example Matter and Radiation at Extremes and Nanotechnology and Precision Engineering).
- Review journals - Applied Physics Reviews and Chemical Physics Reviews publish both original research and authoritative reviews.
Open access & APCs - actual numbers
AIP Publishing offers four OA routes. Figures below are from the publisher's 2026 open-access pages (USD, before tax); always confirm on the journal's own charges page before submission.
| Route | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Gold OA - AIP Advances | $1,800 | Broad-scope, fully OA |
| Gold OA - other AIP fully-OA titles | $2,750 | APL Materials, APL Photonics, APL Quantum, etc. |
| Hybrid OA - Author Select on subscription journals | $3,800 | Optional; subscription publication remains free |
| Diamond OA partner titles | $0 | No author charges |
| Green OA (self-archiving) | $0 | Immediate, no embargo, for the accepted manuscript |
License options are CC BY, CC BY-NC, and CC BY-NC-ND. Authors from Group A countries receive a full APC waiver; Group B countries pay reduced fees of roughly 1,500 depending on the journal, and hardship requests are considered case by case.
AIP Publishing also signs Read & Publish agreements with institutions worldwide, and in October 2025 announced AIP Fusion, a services-based model piloting in 2026 that gives participating institutions unlimited reading of the full portfolio and unlimited CC BY open-access publishing with no per-article APCs. Its earlier Subscribe-to-Open pilot (covering Journal of Applied Physics and Physics of Plasmas) concluded, with those titles folding into the broader OA framework from 2026.
Peer review process
- Model: single-anonymized peer review across the portfolio - reviewers know author identities, authors do not know reviewers.
- Editor pre-screening: flagship titles such as APL screen submissions for scope, novelty, and format before external review.
- Turnaround: varies by journal; letters-format titles are generally faster than archival journals. Check the journal's homepage for current statistics.
How to submit
- Pick the journal. Match your paper's length and scope using the table above, or browse pubs.aip.org.
- Read the author instructions. Each title has specific length limits (APL letters are ~3,000 words at initial submission) and formatting rules.
- Prepare your manuscript. Use the journal's LaTeX or Word template on SciSpace, with AIP-style numbered references.
- Submit via Editorial Manager. AIP Publishing journals use Editorial Manager, accessed through each journal's page on pubs.aip.org; a cover letter explaining the work's significance is encouraged.
- Track your submission. Editorial Manager provides status updates, reviewer communication, and revision handling.
Ethics and integrity
AIP Publishing is a member of COPE, OASPA, and STM, and follows COPE guidance on corrections and retractions. Standard policies cover authorship criteria, conflicts of interest, plagiarism screening, and data availability; authors retain copyright under Creative Commons licenses for OA articles, while subscription articles use a standard publishing agreement.
