materials research express

Materials Research Express

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About Materials Research Express

Materials Research Express™  (MRX) is a multidisciplinary journal devoted to publishing new experimental and theoretical research on the properties, characterization, design and fabrication of all classes of materials, and on their technological applications.

Characterized by article length flexibility and a fast-track peer review process, areas of particular interest include:

• Materials characterization
• Material properties
• Computational materials science and modelling
• Material applications
• Synthesis and fabrication
• Engineering applications of materials listed below †

Material classes within the journal scope: *

• Biomaterials
• Carbon allotropes and 2D materials
• Electronic materials (including semiconductors)
• Glasses and ceramics
• Magnetic materials
• Metals and alloys
• Nanomaterials and nanostructures
• Photonic materials and metamaterials
• Polymers and organic compounds
• Smart materials
• Soft matter
• Superconducting materials
• Surfaces, interfaces and thin films

† Please note, MRX does not usually consider work relating to materials used solely for structural or civil engineering. However, within our ‘Metals and Alloys’ scope, we will consider work on new and complex alloys, aspects of tribology including lubrication and corrosion resistance; microstructure and structure analysis, surface wear analysis etc.

* Please note that the definitions provided for these material classes are not exhaustive.

Why should you publish in MRX?

• High standards: fast, rigorous and constructive reviewing process.
• Fast publication: we are committed to providing you with a quick, professional service to ensure rapid first decision, acceptance and publication. Once accepted, your article will be accessible to readers within 24 hours and will include a citable DOI.
• Inclusive peer-review policy: no subjective assessment is made on the potential future significance or perceived novelty of your paper. Instead, we rigorously assess papers based on the validity of the research, the scientific methodology used, and to ensure all papers meet high ethical standards .
• Open access: your paper will be published under a CC BY licence enabling immediate and perpetual access, and permitting the widest possible dissemination and reuse of your research, but only with clear attribution to you as the copyright owner.
• Transfer opportunities: as well as accepting direct submissions, the journal also offers you a quick and easy solution to transfer your manuscript from another IOP Publishing journal if it does not fit that journal’s scope or significance criteria. Articles are transferred along with peer review reports to save time and avoid duplication of work for reviewers.
• International Editorial Board
• Society owned: IOP Publishing is a leading society publisher of advanced physics research. Any profits generated by IOP Publishing are invested in the Institute of Physics, helping to support research, education and outreach around the world.

Inclusive publishing and trusted science

As a society-owned publisher with a legacy of serving scientific communities, we are committed to offering a home to all scientifically valid and rigorously reviewed research. In doing so, we aim to accelerate the dissemination of scientific knowledge and the advancement of scholarly communications to benefit all.

• Inclusive publishing: We welcome all papers on the basis of scientific validity and a strong methodology. Our scope is inclusive of many types of research including interdisciplinary, null and negative results, and replication studies.
• Trusted Science: Peer review is the backbone to trustworthy scientific scholarly communications. Our internal peer review process assesses all papers with strict scientific and ethical standards.

Article types

MRX welcomes submissions of the following article types:

• Research papers: articles of unlimited length that report new research of high quality.
• Perspectives: commissioned brief commentaries that highlight the impact and wider implications of new research reported in materials research. Perspectives may occasionally be commissioned by the Editorial Board on a broader theme of relevance to the materials community.
• Technical notes :  brief, methods-based articles of a more technical nature, which make a useful and novel addition to the literature.
• Topical reviews: invited review articles that provide a snapshot of recent progress in a particular field relevant to materials science. The typical length is between 10 000–15 000 words. Topical reviews are usually commissioned by the Editorial Board, however unsolicited proposals from the community that comply with the journal’s criteria will also be considered. If you would like to propose a topical review for publication in MRX, please contact the journal .
• Tutorials: often written by early career researchers, tutorial articles are like concise review articles, providing a summary of a relevant area of materials science.

This journal publishes Focus Issues which serve to highlight timely work conducted within specific areas of interest. These are commissioned by Guest Editors.

Peer review

The following summary describes the peer review process for Materials Research Express , using the ANSI/NISO Standard Terminology for Peer Review :

• Identity transparency: single-anonymous, double-anonymous (author choice)
• Reviewer interacts with: Editor
• Review information published: review reports (author and reviewer opt in), author/editor communication, reviewer identities (reviewer opt in)

Our Publishing Support website provides more information on our reviewing process as well as checklists in both English and Chinese language to help authors prepare their manuscripts for submission .

If an article is not accepted for publication, we may offer the author the opportunity to transfer their submission to other suitable journals we publish.

Inclusivity and diversity

IOP Publishing recognises that there are inequalities within the scientific publishing and research ecosystems. We are committed to a progressive approach to inclusivity and diversity, and are working hard to eliminate discrimination to foster an equitable and welcoming publishing environment for all.

IOP Publishing follows  Guidelines on Inclusive Language and Images in Scholarly Communication to ensure that journal articles use bias-free and culturally sensitive communication. We ask authors to please follow these guidelines in their manuscript submissions.

More information about our work on inclusivity is available on our  Open Physics hub .

MRX maintains the highest standards of publication and research ethics and is a member of the Committee for Publication Ethics (COPE). Authors are expected to comply with IOP Publishing’s Ethical Policy .

Reviewers for MRX are expected to point out relevant work that has not been cited and use citations to explain where elements of the work have been previously reported. When writing a report, reviewers should justify any literature references suggested for inclusion in the work.

Citations should add value, and should not be unfairly biased towards an individual, group or organisation. The practice of including superfluous references, including to the reviewer’s own work, to promote and inflate citation scores is unethical.

Editors reserve the right to notify the authors that reports may contain citations that may not fully reflect the diversity of the field and may be unfairly biased towards an individual, group or organisation. Authors do not have to include these into their work if they do not believe they add value, and the editorial decision of the paper will not be affected.

Research data

Please note that this policy requires authors to include a data availability statement in their article.

For any questions about the policy please contact the journal .

Many research funders now require authors to make all data related to their research available in an online repository. Please refer to the  policy  for further information about research data, data repositories and data citation.

Open access

For more information on IOP Publishing’s open access policies please see our  Open access  page.

Members of the Institute of Physics (IOP) are eligible to receive a 25% discount on the article publication charge (APC) for this journal (applicable once per article). The discount can be selected during article submission.

Publication charges

*excluding VAT where applicable

**eligibility criteria can be found here

APCs only apply to articles accepted for publication; there are no submission charges.

There are no other charges for publishing in Materials Research Express .

Transformative Agreements

Find out if you’re covered by an agreement

If you are covered by an agreement, use our author guide to help you submit your paper.

Countries where we have transformative agreements include: Austria, Canada, Croatia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Germany, Poland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, Sweden and Switzerland.

Paying for open access

Various discounts, waivers and funding arrangements are available to support our authors. Visit our  Paying for open access page for further details.

Abstracting and indexing services

We work with our authors to help make their work as easy to discover as possible. MRX is currently included in the following abstracting and discovery services:

• Baidu Scholar
• Chemical Abstracts Service
• Ei Compendex
• INIS (International Nuclear Information System)
• MyScienceWork
• NASA Astrophysics Data System
• Naver Academic
• ProQuest Central
• ProQuest Materials Science Collection
• ProQuest Materials Science Database
• ProQuest SciTech Premium Collection
• ProQuest Technology Collection
• R Discovery
• Semantic Scholar
• Wanfang Data
• Web of Science (Science Citation Index Expanded, Current Contents Physical, Chemical & Earth Sciences, Essential Science Indicators)

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