Micro & Nano Letters Author Guide
This guide is intended to give you the information you need to submit your paper to Micro & Nano Letters and to present it in accordance with our requirements.
Pre-screening
All papers are pre-screened to ensure that only the most significant are sent for review. Please ensure that your manuscript satisfies the following points:
- Originality: is the work scientifically rigorous, accurate and novel? Does the work contain significant additional material to that already published? Has its value been demonstrated?
- Relevance: is the material appropriate to the scope of Micro & Nano Letters?
- Motivation: does the problem considered have a sound motivation? Does the paper clearly demonstrate the scientific interest of the results?
- Referencing: has reference been made to the most recent and most appropriate work? Is the present work set in the context of the previous work?
- Clarity: is the English clear and well written? Poorly written English may obscure the scientific merit of your paper. Are the ideas expressed clearly and concisely? Are the concepts understandable?
- Length: unless previously agreed with the journal's Managing Editor, all submissions must conform with the Micro & Nano Letters Length Policy document
Manuscript submission
All submissions to Micro & Nano Letters should be uploaded using Manuscript Central
Acceptable source-file formats are Microsoft Word (.DOC or .RTF), PDF or Postscript. If submitting a PDF, please make sure you are not using Type 3 fonts and that all fonts are embedded.
Pre- and postprint policy
The author(s) and/or the organisations for whom the work was performed shall be entitled to post preprints of their work (but not the published PDF) on repositories, servers and websites of any sort, provided that these servers are operated by the author's institution or designated by the funding body contributing to the research. The conditions attached to this are as follows:
- Access to such servers is not for commercial use and does not depend on payment of access, subscription, or membership fees and
- The following wording clearly appears on the front page of the preprint:
"This paper is a preprint of a paper submitted to [journal] and is subject to Institution of Engineering and Technology Copyright. If accepted, the copy of record will be available at IET Digital Library"
On acceptance, this may be changed to:
"This paper is a preprint of a paper accepted by [journal] and is subject to Institution of Engineering and Technology Copyright. When the final version is published, the copy of record will be available at IET Digital Library" - If the paper is rejected, then all mention of the journal should be removed.
- The preprint should be removed if a subsequent postprint is posted.
The author may also post postprints of their work (reviewed, revised and accepted for publication by the IET, but not the published PDF) on repositories, servers and websites of any sort, provided that these servers are operated by the author's institution or the funding body contributing to the research. To comply with funding requirements, authors may also deposit their work (reviewed, revised and accepted for publication by the IET, but not the published PDF) in repositories (or mirror sites) designated by the funding body. The conditions attached to this are as follows:
- Access to such servers is not for commercial use and does not depend on payment of access, subscription, or membership fees
- The following wording clearly appears on the front page of the postprint:
"This paper is a postprint of a paper submitted to and accepted for publication in [journal] and is subject to Institution of Engineering and Technology Copyright. The copy of record is available at IET Digital Library" - The postprint must be the author's version and not the IET version/PDF.
- The postprint must not be posted prior to publication of the paper by the IET and when posted any preprint version should be removed.
Any questions should be addressed to the publisher (journals@theiet.org)
Manuscript presentation
Length
Original research papers submitted to Micro & Nano Letters should be a maximum of 3 journal pages (where 1 journal page is equivalent to 5 manuscript pages, including figures and tables). As an approximate guide, papers should be no more than 3000 words in length and contain no more than 6 figures and 2 tables. Please see the Micro & Nano Letters Length Policy document.
Format
Papers must be typed in a font size no smaller than 10 pt, and presented in single column format with double line spacing on one side A4 paper. All pages should be numbered.
Authors should not copy the format of the published journal. All accepted papers will be edited into the Micro & Nano Letters house-style.
Language, spelling and grammar
All papers must be written in UK English. If English is not your first language, you should ask an English-speaking colleague to proofread your paper. Papers that fail to meet basic standards of literacy are likely be declined immediately by the editors.
Acronyms and abbreviations
Acronyms and abbreviations should be clearly defined on their first occurrence in the text by writing the term out in full and following it with the abbreviation in round brackets.
Title
This should be concise but informative and should not include a subtitle. Titles should not begin with words such as "a", "novel", "new" or "the".
Author affiliations
These should immediately follow the title. For multiple-authored articles, list the names of all the authors, followed by the full postal and email addresses, using identifiers to link an author with an address where necessary. If an author's present address is different from the address at which the work was carried out, this should be given as a footnote.
Abstract
This should be informative and suitable for direct inclusion in abstracting services as a self-contained article. It should not exceed 250 words.
It should indicate the general scope and also state the main results obtained, methods used, the value of the work and the conclusions drawn. No figure numbers, table numbers, references or displayed mathematical expressions should be included.
Fonts
Vectors and matrices should be displayed in bold and variables in italic. Italics should not be used for emphasis.
Figures and figure captions
Figures and a list of figure captions should be provided in a separate section at the end of the manuscript. Each figure should be explicitly referred to in the text. Figures should be referred to in numerical order.
Figure captions should be as concise as possible
The use of characters, subscripts and superscripts in figures should be consistent with the text.
Tables
Each table should be referred to explicitly in the text. Tables should be referred to in numerical order.
Avoid the use of unusual mathematical characters or graphical material in tables, since the markup language may not be able to reproduce this. If your table contains such material, it will be set as a figure.
Algorithms
Please set as normal text, not as a figure or a table.
Mathematics and equations
Equations should be capable of fitting into a two-column print format. Vectors and matrices should be in bold and variables in italic.
Exponential expressions should be written using superscript notation, i.e. 5x103 not 5E03. A multiplication sign should be used, not a dot.
Symbols representing vectors and matrices should be in bold font. Refer to equations using round brackets, e.g. (1)
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments should appear as a separate section between the Conclusions and References sections.
References
Micro & Nano Letters uses the Vancouver (numerical) system for references. You should number your references sequentially through the text, and each reference should be individually numbered and enclosed in square brackets (e.g. [1]).
Please ensure that all references in the Reference list are cited in the text and vice versa. Failure to do so may cause delays in the production of your article.
Please also ensure that you provide as much information as possible to allow the reader to locate the article concerned. This is particularly important for articles appearing in conferences, workshops and books that may not appear in journal databases.
Please provide all author name(s) and initials, title of the paper, date published, title of journal or book, volume number, editors (if any), and finally the page range. For books and conferences, the town of publication and publisher (in parentheses) should also be given.
Copyright
Completed 'Publication Agreement and Assessment of Copyright' and 'Statement of Originality' forms are required for all papers to be published. These should be emailed, posted or faxed to the Editorial Office (address given on the form) once you have had your paper accepted. The forms should be signed by all authors, but where this is not practical, the corresponding author may sign on behalf of all authors by indicating this next to their signature.
Should your paper draw on previously published work, appropriate acknowledgment should be given by its citation.
Permission to reproduce previously published illustrations should be obtained where necessary, and the source of the illustration should be given in full.
Copyright Documents and additional information
Reproduction
Permissions to reproduce articles published in IET journals should be emailed to micronanoletters@theiet.org