EDITORIAL pubs.acs.org/JPCB
Editorial for January 2012 for JPC A/B/C
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s we transition into the New Year, we want to extend our best wishes to the authors, readers, and reviewers of The Journal of Physical Chemistry (JPC). 2011 was an active year for the Journal, with the appointment of four new Senior Editors (Joan Emma Shea, Juan Bisquert, Victor Batista, and most recently Marty Zanni) and three of us were appointed as Deputy Editors (Anne McCoy for JPC A, Sharon Hammes-Schiffer for JPC B, and Cathy Murphy for JPC C). Two Senior Editors with JPC, Oleg Prezhdo and Greg Scholes, have moved from A/B/C to The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, so that the Letters team now consists of Prashant Kamat (Deputy Editor for Letters), Tim Zwier, Oleg Prezhdo, and Greg Scholes. Although the Senior Editors still handle manuscripts for all of the parts of JPC A/B/C, the new Deputy Editors are taking over functions for their respective Journals and, in turn, are providing a unique identity to each Journal. In particular, the Deputy Editors are now soliciting Feature Articles, organizing Special Issues, coordinating marketing activities, sponsoring conferences, and handling appeals and ethical violations for manuscripts in their Journal. We hope that by distributing these functions, the Journals can be better integrated with their respective communities and more efficiently managed. The roll-out of Letters is beginning its third year, and we continue to achieve our goal of providing the fastest and highest profile publication possible for authors in the physical chemistry community. Thanks to the hard work of the editors and their office staff, as well as others in ACS Publications, we continue to maintain a ∼40 day average time from submission to publication (includes pagination). We continue to have Perspectives in every issue (70 published in 2011) broadly discussing the developments and issues of an emerging research theme, along with Editorials written by editors or authors who are experts in the field. Also, many of the authors of Perspective articles have provided accompanying video presentations, and catalogs of the Perspectives and Perspective videos are now available on the JPC Letters homepage. Perspectives topics in 2011 included nanomaterials modeling, renewable energy, proteins, solar hydrogen, metal oxides, organic aggregates, clusters and nanocrystals, solvent effects, energy conversion, proton coupled electron transfer, amphiphilic soft materials, nanoporous materials, photovoltaics, structure and function in nanoparticles, quantum chemistry, biomass pyrolysis oil, graphene, bionanotechnology, and semiconductor nanocrystals. We thank our contributors, reviewers, and readers for making Letters such a successful addition to the JPC family. Special Issues published in 2011 included Festschrifts for Alfons Baiker, Graham Fleming, Shaul Mukamel, Victoria Buch, Peter Toennies, David Pratt, Pavel Hobza, and Richard Bader, and Eugene Stanley. Also we published a symposium issue entitled “Laser Ablation and Nanoparticle Generation in Liquids” and a special section on “Clusters in Complex Fluids”. Authors or readers who have ideas for possible special issues are encouraged to contact us. We also did a Virtual Issue on Graphene and Plasmonics, and we participated with other ACS journals in a Virtual Issue on Ionic Liquids. r 2012 American Chemical Society
Feature Articles published in 2011 covered a wide range of topics in physical chemistry, including the spectroscopy of acetylene, quantum control, CARS, dielectric nanodroplets, the properties of rutile, and studies of catalysts, of lipids and proteins, of plasmonic nanoparticles, and of nanoparticle synthesis. We are looking forward to an increased number of Feature Articles for JPC A/B/C in the upcoming years. The Feature Articles in JPC provide an excellent opportunity for authors to summarize a substantial body of their work for the general physical chemistry community. These articles are valuable resources for students and nonexperts who want to learn about an area of research covered in the Journal from the point of view of an expert who has made great contributions to physical chemistry. We encourage authors to contact us if you are interested in contributing a Feature Article to JPC A/B/C. The JPC Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/home. php?#!/JournalofPhysicalChemistry) has become the go to place for information on the latest happenings in the JPC community. The page continues to have new content added weekly and provides access to special issues, videos, and information of interest to physical chemists. A new feature added to the Journal in 2011 was the implementation of Just Accepted Manuscripts, in which articles can appear on the web immediately after acceptance. The immediately posted article is later replaced with the final edited version of the article, which has the same DOI. This option has been very popular, with the majority of authors opting to take advantage of it. Occasionally, it becomes desirable to revise the Journal sections, and such a revision will take place in early 2012. Be on the alert for an announcement on the JPC web page (and elsewhere) that will have more information about the timing of the transition. There will also be some information about the changes available to authors at the ACS National Meeting in San Diego in the spring. The new subsections, which we hope will provide a clearer and more inclusive scope for the Journals, will be JPC A: Isolated molecules, clusters, radicals, and ions; environmental chemistry, geochemistry, and astrochemistry; theory A1. Kinetics and dynamics A2. Spectroscopy, photochemistry, and excited states A3. Environmental and atmospheric chemistry, aerosol processes, geochemistry, and astrochemistry A4. Molecular structure, quantum chemistry, and general theory JPC B: Biophysical chemistry, biomaterials, liquids, and soft matter B1. Biophysical chemistry and biomolecules B2. Biomaterials, surfactants, and membranes B3. Liquids; chemical and dynamical processes in solution B4. Glasses, colloids, polymers, and soft matter JPC C: Energy conversion and storage, optical and electronic devices, interfaces, nanomaterials, and hard matter
Published: January 12, 2012 1
dx.doi.org/10.1021/jp2114412 | J. Phys. Chem. B 2012, 116, 1–2
The Journal of Physical Chemistry B
EDITORIAL
C1. Energy conversion and storage; energy and charge transport C2. Surfaces, interfaces, porous materials, and catalysis C3. Plasmonics, optical materials, and hard matter C4. Physical processes in nanomaterials and nanostructures We have continued to enjoy a wonderful partnership with the Physical Division of the ACS. In 2011 we cohosted a reception at the Denver ACS meeting that included the awarding of the 2011 Physical Chemistry Division Award in Experimental Physical Chemistry to Senior Editor Mike Duncan, as well as recognition of Senior Editor Ken Jordan, who was awarded the 2010 Physical Chemistry Division Award in Theoretical Chemistry in Telluride in July, and the winners of a poster competition. Donna Minton, our Managing Editor, continues to provide invaluable service to the Journals, basically keeping the operation humming so that the rest of us can worry about manuscripts. We thank the head office staff in Evanston—Davine Henderson, Jan Goranson, Julie Rosetti, Barbara Sydow, Vincent Rezaei, and Felicia Miller—for their tireless work to make the Journals run smoothly and efficiently. We are grateful to Betsy Foran, LeeAnn Pannebaker, and Harriet Bradham for their terrific work in managing the Deputy Editor offices for JPC A/B/C, respectively. We are looking forward to a healthy and productive 2012, and we hope that all of you, our authors and reviewers, have a prosperous and successful year! Anne B. McCoy Deputy Editor Sharon Hammes-Schiffer Deputy Editor Catherine J. Murphy Deputy Editor George C. Schatz Editor-in-Chief
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dx.doi.org/10.1021/jp2114412 |J. Phys. Chem. B 2012, 116, 1–2