Instruction for authors

The submission stage

Authors should submit their manuscripts electronically, only through the web at the following address:
https://articlestatus.edpsciences.org/is/epjpv

For the peer review process:
Manuscripts should be preferably in one single PDF with text, figures and tables. Word, PS or RTF files are also accepted.

EPJ Photovoltaics can only consider articles that have been approved by all co-authors, and that have not been published and are not currently submitted for publication in any other journals. When an author has used a figure or a table from another publication, he should indicate clearly the origin of the manuscript and should also obtain the permission for reproduction from the publisher concerned. All papers are reviewed and only the articles with a positive report will be accepted for publication.

Manuscript content

The manuscripts should be written in English.
Material should be placed in the following order: title, author names, address of author institutions, abstract, text, acknowledgments, author contribution statement, appendices, references, figure and table captions, figures, tables.

The acceptance stage

At this stage, an electronic version of the manuscript (Word, TeX, LaTeX), which must exactly match the accepted version, should be sent to the publisher (even if the article had been previously submitted electronically). The Editorial Office will send an acceptance letter to the corresponding author, and at the same time, will ask for electronic files of text and figures. All portions of the manuscript available in electronic form should be sent to the production department according to the instructions mentioned in the acceptance letter from the Editorial Office or to be found on our web servers.

Authors are informed that any missing element in an accepted article (electronic file of the text and/or good quality laser printed figures) will delay the publication date. The Editorial Office will keep the paper on a waiting list until all missing material is received.

The proof correction stage

Authors should keep in mind that reading proofs is their responsibility. Files typeset using Word, Wordperfect, Macwrite, etc., need heavy retyping (equations and special characters are lost during the conversion process). Also, LaTeX files are slightly modified by the production department to follow general presentation rules of the journal. The main aim of proofreading is to correct errors that may have occurred during the production process, and not to modify the content of the paper. The proofs, once corrected, should be signed and returned to the publisher as soon as possible.

Publication charges

For more information about EPJ Photovoltaics publication charges, please click here.

Style guide

Title

Title should be simple, concise and informative.

Author(s) name(s) and affiliations

A list of all authors, as well as corresponding addresses, should be provided. Addresses should contain all information necessary for an effective mail delivery. E-mail and telephone numbers should also be provided to speed up communication between Editorial Office, readers and authors.

Abstract

An abstract should accompany each manuscript; it should be completely self-contained, not exceeding 200 words and written as a single paragraph. Mathematical expressions should be avoided.

Keywords

Authors should provide a maximum of five keywords. Keywords should be written in lowercase letters, separated by slashes.

Main body of the paper

The body of the paper should be divided into sections (however, in short papers, sections may not be necessary). Sections should be numbered with Arabic (not roman) numerals. Subsections (second level) should be numbered 1.2, 1.3, etc., and sub-subsections (third level) 1.1.1, 1.1.2, etc. Appendices should be numbered A, B, etc. All sections must have a short descriptive title, which should be capitalized. Equations, tables, figures, and references should follow a sequential numerical scheme in order to ensure a logical development of subject matter.

Mathematical material

A standard typesetting procedure is followed by the production staff. Authors should observe the following simple rules to help clarify the content of mathematical material.

• The text should make clear distinctions between physical variables, mathematical symbols, units of measurement, abbreviations, chemical formulas, etc. Hand-written Greek letters should be written fully in the margin at the first place of mention.
• Equations must be typewritten in papers submitted as hard copy and be sequentially numbered. The number should appear in parentheses at the right-hand side of the page and referred to in the text as, e.g. (7).

Caution: Mathematical expressions often need to be displayed on two or more lines (“broken”) because of the line length limitation of EPJ Photovoltaics two-column layout. There are situations where breaking an equation is not possible or appropriate (long fractions or matrices). The production department reserves the possibility to place unbroken equations at the bottom or at the top of the concerned page(s), according to the page-layout to be defined by the production staff, with an appropriate citation in the text. For example:

See equation (8) below (above)

• Authors who have access to italic and boldface should use these to identify physical or mathematical variables. Variables are to be set in normal italic. Physical constants such as the speed of light or the Boltzmann constant are also set in normal italic.
• Italic type should be avoided for the following:
  • Units of measurement (e.g., km, g, K, cm^-2, s^-1).
  • Mathematical signs such as sin, cos, log, exp, etc.
  • Chemical formulas.

Acknowledgments and appendices

The acknowledgment section should follow the main body of the paper and should precede any appendix. Appendices should be numbered with A, B, etc. if there are more than one appendix (Appendix A or Appendix A: Complex developments, when there is a title). The appendix equations should be numbered consecutively, but separately from those in the main body of the paper ((A1), (A2), etc.). In each appendix equations will be numbered separately ((B1), (B2), etc.).

Author Contribution Statement

Please provide a statement at the end of the paper (after the Acknowledgments) in which the nature of the contribution of each author is made explicit. Statements indicating that all authors contributed equally to the paper are also acceptable.

Figures

Authors are encouraged to submit colour illustration: EPJ Photovoltaics is an all-electronic journal and all figures will appear freely in colour.

Each figure should be cited in the text. They must conform to the usual quality criteria given below. Authors should remember that the final published quality of illustrations can never be better than the quality of the original artwork.

• Good quality figures have the following characteristics:
  
  • They should be produced with a good quality laser printer and have lines, letters, numbers and symbols of uniform strength and contrast.
  • Authors should avoid including any unnecessary text around a figure, such as captions, figure numbers, author or file names. These indications should be handwritten on the back or at the bottom of the original figures.
  • Parts of diagrams, graphs, ... should be clearly indicated by different types of hatching. Grey scales, which might get difficult to distinguish after reducing, or which often disappear during the printing process, should be avoided. Also, parts a, b, c, etc. of a figure should be in separate files.
  • Standard symbols which should be used inside a figure are:
  • Labelling should be uniform in size throughout all figures. Lettering should not be pasted on to the figures as it may easily become detached as a result of handling.
  • After photographic reduction, all details of the figures should still be visible and all labelling legible.
• Scaling of artwork
  Figures are often reduced to 50% of their original size. Very few figures have a final size outside the range of 40--85%. The final size of capital letters or numerals in a figure usually lies within the range 1.6--2.3 mm to avoid any disproportion between figure/text character sizes.

References

It is important to confirm the accuracy of bibliographic information in references. This has become more important with the online version. Hyperlinks will be programmed to enable readers to jump directly to the material cited. If your reference citations are incorrect or incomplete (e.g., missing author name, or an incorrect volume number or page), the associated hyperlinks may fail, and the usefulness of your paper in the online environment may be diminished.

References should be cited in the text by placing sequential numbers in brackets (for example, [1], [2,5,7], [8--10]). They should be numbered in the order in which they are cited. Authors may be cited in the text by name, but without initials. Authors should use the forms below in the final reference list.

Journals

1. J.M. Smith., R. Brown, C. Green, EPJ Photov. 1, 01 (2010)
2. J.M. Smith et al., Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. 4, 123 (2008)
3. J.M. Smith, J. Phys. I France 6, 123 (2009); J.M. Smith, Nucl. Phys. A 195, 123 (2008)
4. J.M. Smith, J. Phys. II France 5, 123 (2009)

Journals accepted for publication

5. J.M. Smith, Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. (to be published)

Books

6. J.M. Smith, in Molecular Dynamics, edited by C. Brown, 2nd edn. (EDP Sciences, Les Ulis, 2008)

Proceedings

7. J.M. Smith, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Low Temperature Physics, Madison, 1975, edited by C. Brown (EDP Sciences, Les Ulis, 2008), p. 201

Reports and Theses

8. J.M. Smith, Brookhaven National Laboratory Report No. 110, 1982 (unpublished)
9. J.M. Smith, Ph.D. thesis, University of Paris XI, 2006

Others

10. J.M. Smith (private communication)
11. J.M. Smith (unpublished)