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What Does “Important New Physical Insight” Mean? Answers for the Community of 2D Materials Experimental Researchers
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efficiency at the microscopic level and reached an important new level of understanding that is potentially useful for improving device design and efficiency in the future. A specific counterexample is a manuscript which reports on the synthesis of graphene using a slightly modified literature method and characterization of the material using a suite of standard techniques, including UV−visible spectroscopy, photoluminescence spectroscopy, SEM, TEM, and XRD. The manuscript is clearly written and well-organized. However, the authors do not provide observation of a new phenomenon or accompanying explanations. Therefore, the manuscript does not represent a meaningful and deeper understanding of the material system. Another specific counterexample is a manuscript that demonstrates high sensitivity of a sensor fabricated using known nanomaterials in the detection of an important molecule, e.g., glucose related to diabetes or a protein biomarker related to cancer detection or monitoring, but applies well-established principles and provides little or no new understanding from the perspective of physical chemistry. A final counterexample is the report on measured magnetic properties of a known magnetic material composited with a 2D material that shows active optical and magnetic properties. Comprehensive measurements were carried out on the structural, optical, and magnetic properties. Applications were demonstrated for photocatalysis, e.g., photodegradation of a well-known dye molecule such as rhodamine 6G (R6G), based on the optical properties as well as sensing based on the magnetic properties. While a lot of data were presented, none was analyzed in detail to provide any new understanding in relation to the material synthesis or applications. Furthermore, the performance of the composite material in the applications demonstrated was modest compared to other materials that have been studied and reported in the literature for the same or similar applications. I hope these examples above provide a glimpse, from one perspective, into the “important new physical (chemistry) insight” that JPC editors and reviewers as well as readers are expecting when reading JPC papers.
ne of the major review criteria for JPC manuscripts is “important new physical insight”. Different perspectives on this issue have been presented as editorials, and more are expected to come out soon in JPC. Here, I provide my viewpoint with a focus on experimental studies of twodimensional (2D) (nano)materials, many of which are semiconductors. “Important new physical insight” requires a significant and new (or deeper) understanding of a subject matter. Examples include a deeper understanding of mechanisms of reactions used to produce the (nano)materials and detailed explanation of a new physical or chemical phenomenon observed. Counterexamples, i.e., manuscripts that do not provide sufficient “important new physical insight”, include routine synthesis of materials using existing or slightly modified methods with few or no mechanistic studies or fabrication and testing of devices such as solar cells or sensors with no new phenomenon observed and little explanation provided. It should be emphasized that, in general, “new” is necessary but not sufficient for publication. Ideally, a good piece of work should be “new” and “significant”. For JPC, besides “new” and “significant”, the work needs to also provide “better or deeper understanding”, i.e., “new insight”. Examples of manuscripts that do provide “new physical insight” include those that conducted systematic studies to reveal new details about the reaction mechanisms behind the synthesis of important materials for potential technological applications. The research should use a combination of experimental and theoretical/computation techniques to gain a better understanding at the molecular or atomic level. The results should help shed new light on the reaction mechanisms that can lead to the development of novel materials for advanced technologies. A specific example is the detailed study of the reaction mechanisms associated with the synthesis of different MoS2 nanostructures using designed solution chemical reactions as well as the electrochemical properties of annealed MoS2 samples that showed better reversible intercalation/ deintercalation cycles in as-synthesized MoS2 nanostructures than in bulk MoS2 samples (J. Phys. Chem. B 2004, 108, 13893). Another example is the study of fundamentally interesting processes in existing materials using new experimental techniques to gain a deeper understanding of underlying principles. This can be illustrated with the specific case of the recent development of ultrafast laser spectroscopy with photocurrent detection that successfully overcomes many limitations of all-optical methods and can be applied to study a number of important photophysical problems of interest, including exciton dissociation and charge transfer (J. Phys. Chem. Letters 2016, 7, 250). A third example is research focusing on solar cells using existing materials with modest solar conversion efficiency compared to the literature. Although this alone does not seem suitable for JPC, the authors did a thorough and systematic study to determine the mechanism behind the modest © 2017 American Chemical Society
Jin Z. Zhang, Senior Editor, Journal of Physical Chemistry
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Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064, United States
AUTHOR INFORMATION
ORCID
Jin Z. Zhang: 0000-0003-3437-912X Notes
The author declares no competing financial interest.
Published: July 20, 2017 14993
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.7b06473 J. Phys. Chem. C 2017, 121, 14993−14993
