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MATERIALS FOCUS
ISSN: 2169-429X (Print) EISSN: 2169-4303 (Online)
Copyright © 2000- American Scientific Publishers. All Rights Reserved.
Instructions for Authors
Materials Focus is a multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal with a very wide-ranging coverage, consolidates fundamental and applied research aspects in all areas of science and engineering of novel advanced materials including synthesis, processing, spectroscopy, and characterization of organic, inorganic, semiconductors, superconductors, dielectrics, ferroelectrics, metals, alloys, ionic materials, ceramics, sol-gel materials, carbon-based materials, fullerenes, nanotubes, nanoparticles, nanowires, quantum dots, nanocrystals,, liquid crystals, conducting polymers, organic conductors, photoconductors, optical and photonics materials, electrochromic materials, photoactive chalcogenide glasses, solar materials, photovoltaic materials, luminescent materials, nanomaterials, drug delivery systems, confined systems, thin films, layered materials, porous materials, supramolecules, self-assemblies, biomaterials, magnetic materials, composites, organic-inorganic hybrid materials, theoretical and computational approaches, their electrical, optical, magnetic, chemical, physical, mechanical, thermal, and structural properties; and electronic, photonic, magnetic, engineering and medical applications. The journal publishes full research papers, timely review articles with author's photo and short biography, and short communications of important new scientific findings, encompassing all fundamental and applied research aspects of emerging advanced materials. The peer-reviewed proceedings of scientific meetings, symposia and workshops related to all disciplines are also published. Authors will receive the following benefits:
  • Electronic submission of articles
  • Fast reviews
  • Rapid times to publication
  • No page charges
  • Free color where justified
  • Distinguished editorial board
  • Availability in print and online editions
JOURNAL POLICY: It is Materials Focus policy to publish only original and unpublished research work, therefore, the journal does not wish to receive any papers on research work that has already been reported in parts or contains already published text, data, figures, tables or other illustrations or any copyright materials whatsoever that has been submitted or accepted for publication either in a journal or conference proceedings elsewhere in any form, in print or in electronic media. When submitting a manuscript, authors should make a full statement to the Editors that the research work contained in their manuscript is completely original and unpublished. If redundant or duplicate publication is attempted or occurs authors should expect immediate editorial action to be taken including prompt rejection of the submitted manuscript. Submission of any manuscript that contains redundant or duplicate publication of the same or very similar research work violates the policies of this journal. Extended/modified versions of previously published abstracts/papers in any conferences/journals are not allowed whatsoever. It is the sole responsibility of Authors to ensure that all manuscripts are new, original and not published previously in any form any media, shall not infringe upon or violate any kind of copyrights of others and does not contains any plagiarized, fraudulent and improperly attributed materials.

It is the sole responsibility of all authors to ensure that all manuscripts are new, original and not published previously in any form any media, shall not infringe upon or violate any kind of copyrights of others and does not contains any plagiarized, fraudulent and improperly attributed materials. Extended and modified versions of previously published abstracts, papers in any conference or journal are not allowed whatsoever.

Corresponding author should provide a clear statement confirming this while submitting manuscript to any ASP journal. Is this manuscript 100% original and unpublished? Has this manuscript been published in parts (figures/text/tables) in any conference proceedings or journal in any media or language or format whatsoever? Is this manuscript from free from plagiarism (including self-plagiarism) and copyright infringement?

Authors must follow this "Journal Policy" strictly.

PUBLISHING ETHICS: American Scientific Publishers strictly follows guidelines set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors, available at www.publicationethics.org. All Authors, Peer-Reviewers and Editors work together in a great harmony to ensure the highest ethical standards in publishing quality research work in our journals.
 
ETHICAL COMPLIANCE: Research papers reporting animal or clinical studies should, where appropriate, contain a statement that they have been carried out with animal or human ethics committee approval. All scientific studies should be carried out in accordance with the relevant national and local guidelines. Each author(s) warrants that his or her research institution has fully approved the protocol for all scientific studies involving animals or humans and that all experiments of any kinds were conducted in compliance with ethical and humane principles of research after ethics committee approval.
 
SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPT: Authors are kindly advised to read Materials Focus policy and also the uniform requirements for manuscripts submission. Authors are encouraged to submit high quality original research work that has not been published or nor under consideration by other journals or conference proceedings elsewhere. Authors should submit manuscript online to the Manuscript Tracking System

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Professor Ahmad Umar, PhD
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Promising Centre for Sensors and Electronic Devices (PCSED)
Najran University, P.O. Box 1988, Najran 11001, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Phone: +966-534-574-597
Fax: +966-7-5442-135
Email: matfocus.asp@gmail.com

 
Authors should submit a List of FIVE (5) potential referees accompanied with their complete mailing address, telephone, fax and email address, who may be contacted for reviewing the manuscript though refereeing, is done by anonymous reviewers selected by the Editor-in-Chief.
 
COVER ART: Authors are encouraged to submit high quality color figure/illustration to have their published paper featured.

MANUSCRIPT PROCESSING FEES: Authors should understand that there are many occurring publishing expenses per journal page associated with manuscript processing, editorial, production, typesetting, printing, paper, binding, shipping, web-hosting, and archiving. However authors pay no publication fees as well as the costs of any color figure/illustration in a print edition to American Scientific Publishers whatsoever, therefore, publisher is doing all services to authors free of costs and/or at fractional costs, hence, publisher is not obligated to provide any hard/softcopies of journal issue and/or research article to anyone whatsoever. Authors may download pdf file of their published papers from Ingenta after paying fractional costs. If authors require a hardcopy of the journal issue having their research articles then authors may also purchase hardcopies of the journal issue or subscribe to the journal by contacting the publisher. No free hard/softcopies of journal issue and/or research article are provided. On the other hand, if authors want to support the journal by paying full manuscript processing fees plus all costs of color figures/illustrations/photos in a print edition through their research grants or affiliated institutions, then publisher will provide hardcopy of journal issue or pdf file of his/her research article after receiving a full payment. American Scientific Publishers highly appreciate for author's kind understanding and support.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COPYEDITING
It is sole responsibility of the authors to submit their final accepted manuscript in correct English language, free of all typographical/grammatical errors to meet high publishing standards. All authors from non-English language countries should get their final accepted manuscripts copyedited by professional copyediting services at author's own expense. All copyediting services are fully paid for and arranged by the authors. Manuscripts will be processed for publication on a condition that authors submit a certificate of proof along with their final accepted manuscript. A list of professional copyediting editing services can be found below.
1. American Journal Experts (www.aje.com)
2. BioMed Proofreading LLC (www.biomedproofreading.com/index.htm)
3. Editage (www.editage.com)
4. International Science Editing Ltd. (www.internationalscienceediting.com)
5. ScienceDocs Inc.(www.sciencedocs.com)
6. SciTechEdit International (www.scitechedit.com)
7. Stallard Scientific Editing (www.stallardediting.com)
8. Textcheck (www.textcheck.com)
9. Write Science Right (www.writescienceright.com/index.html)
COMMUNICATIONS: Highest priority will be given to the communications reporting important new scientific and technological findings. Rapid publication is provided for concise and up-to-date reports. These articles should not exceed three-four published pages. No section headings should be used for these short communications.
 
RESEARCH ARTICLES: Full length papers that report original research work on new ideas in any fields of science, engineering and medicine.

REVIEW ARTICLES: The state-of-the-art review articles with author's short biography and photo are published. Reviews are limited to a maximum length of 15 journal pages having more than 100 references. It is authors' responsibility to obtain written copyright permissions to reproduce any copyright materials from other sources. Authors are advised to cite proper references in figure/tables captions of all previously published figures/tables/illustrations including their own published work and obtain copyright permissions from appropriate publishers and authors.

TYPING: All manuscripts must be in English, typed double-spaced throughout (including footnotes, references, tables, legends) on 8.5" x 11" or A4 white paper leaving at least 1 inch left hand margin.
 
INTRODUCTORY MATERIAL: The first page of the manuscript should have a concise title limited to about 15 words and the names of all authors, complete mailing address for correspondence, telephone, fax numbers and email address. Please indicate with an asterisk (*) the author to whom correspondence regarding the manuscript should be directed.
 
ABSTRACT: All manuscripts must contain an informative 250-300 words abstract explaining the essential contents of the work, key ideas and results.
 
FIGURES: It is very important to supply high quality figures in a form suitable for reproduction. All figures, tables, illustrations, photographs should be prepared in such a way that they could be printed in a single column size with a width of 3 1/4 inches or 8.25 cm. Use 14 ARIAL BOLD font for legends and 11 ARIAL font for numbering/wordings in figures, use the same font for all figures. Only if absolutely necessary should figures/tables/photos occupy double columns. Each figure must be referred to in the text and will be printed in black and white unless otherwise instructed by the authors. Each Figure should be submitted on a separate sheet and marked with the name of the author, title of manuscript and figure number. All formulae and figures should be carefully drafted and never drawn freehand. High quality original figures and glossy prints of all photographs are required. Photocopies of the figures and photographs are not acceptable.
 
FREE COLOR PRINTING: Color illustrations are most welcome by the journal as they are effective in conveying complex graphs and photographs. Free color printing at the publisher's discretion, will provide an opportunity to publish color figures/illustrations in print at NO COST to the authors.
 
PHOTOGRAPHS: Half-tone illustrations should be supplied as clear, glossy, unmounted prints. The author's name, title of manuscript and figure number should be written on the back.
 
TABLES: Each table must be referred to in the text. Each table should be typed double-spaced on a separate sheet and identified sequentially by Arabic numerals corresponding to the order in which they appear in the text. Each table should have a brief explanatory title, which should be labeled unambiguously. The position of each table should be clearly marked in the text.
 
UNITS: Internationally accepted units of measurement must be used. The units of measurement are used in conjunction with their numerical values; the units should be abbreviated as suggested below. If more commonly used units are adopted, conversion factors should be given at their first occurrence. Greek symbols may be used.
 
%, ºC, nm, µm (not m), mm, cm, cm3, m, h (or hr), min, s (or sec), µg, mg, g (or gm), kg, cal, kcal, in. (or write out inch), ml [write out liter(s)].
 
The APS style guide can be used as a general reference on matter of units, grammar and formatting.
 
ABBREVIATIONS: No abbreviations are allowed in the title and abstract and should be defined the first time they are used within the text. The "Materials Focus" should be abbreviated as Mater. Focus for the reference citation purpose.
 
FORMATS FOR ONLINE SUBMISSION:
Authors are advised to convert all text/figures/tables from Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPont formats to a single PDF file and submit the manuscript as a single file (title/affiliations/abstarct/keywords/text/references/figures/tables) in a PDF format. All submitted figure images must have resolutions of at least 300 dpi.
 
Authors are advised to use these formatting guidelines. Manuscripts that do not follow the preparation guidelines may be returned to the authors.
 
ORGANIZATION OF MANUSCRIPT:
The manuscript should be organized in the following sequence and submitted as a single file.

TITLE:
The title should be brief, precise and informative to deliver the main objective of the research paper.

AFFILIATIONS:
Complete affiliations of all authors of a research paper are required including their department, university/company, city, zipcode, and country.

ABSTRACT:
A single paragraph contains fewer than 250 words. The goal of the abstract is to provide a very brief background of research work accomplished and reporting of significant experimental results. No reference citation in the abstract.

KEYWORDS:
Include 5-6 important keywords related to research topic.

INTRODUCTION:
The Introduction should present the importance of present studies in providing significance to answer previously unresolved question.

EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS:
Information of materials and method should be described in order to be clear to the readers for understanding the data presentation in the paper. No supplemental section allowed, make all extra information a part of manuscript.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:
The results should present concise data logically. Use divided subheadings to establish the logical sequence if necessary. The discussion should be brief and comprehensive. Emphasis should be on the discussing the novelty of the studies and establishing a new hypothesis or model on the basis of the studies.

CONCLUSION:
Summarize all important accomplishments achieved.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
List of funding resources can be listed. These should be brief and placed at the end of the text before the references.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS:
All abbreviations used in the abstract/text should be defined where first used, or a list of abbreviations may be included in the end before references. Do not use abbreviations in the research paper's title.
 
REFERENCES :
References should be in the proper format on a separate page, numbered in the sequence in which they occur in the text. Cite references numerically as superscripts in the text and list at the end of the manuscript. Do not use abstracts and websites as references. Do not cite any submitted work until it has been accepted for publication. References to papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as "in press". Avoid citing any unpublished work or personal communication. The references must be verified by the authors against the original documents, not just be copied from cited references in other journals/papers.

When citing in the text, reference numbers should be superscripted in brackets.

Do not use linked fields (produced by EndNote and similar programs). Please use the one-click button provided by EndNote to remove EndNote codes before finalizing your manuscript for submission.

Each cited work should have a separate reference number (multiple citations are not allowed against a single reference number).

Only published or accepted articles should be cited and included in the reference list; papers in preparation or just submitted should NOT be referenced. Status of the accepted articles in the reference list must be updated while revising the manuscript and proof reading. If the publication detail (volume and page numbers) of a cited article in press is not available, DOI numbers must be noted at the end of the reference.

Authors’ names should begin with first and middle names initialized, followed by the surname. Full titles of all cited articles are required. The article titles in the reference list should be written in sentence case (only the first word capitalized, not all words) and in upright (not italicized).

While citing a book chapter, the reference should begin with the names of the chapter authors, followed by the chapter title (in sentence case and upright), and then the book title (all words capitalized and italicized). Finally, the publisher, city, year and page number should appear in sequence.

Journal titles should be abbreviated as standard usage (italicized).

The year of publication should be typed bold, but the parentheses should be normal (not bold) terminating with a period.

For example, References should be typed in the following pattern.

1. Journal Article
E. Singh and H. S. Nalwa, Graphene-based dye-sensitized solar sells: A review, Sci. Adv. Mater. 7, 1863 (2015).

2. Books
A. Umar (Ed.); Encyclopedia of Semiconductor Nanotechnology; vol. 1-7, American Scientific Publishers, Los Angeles, USA (2017).

A. Umar and Y.B. Hahn (Eds); Metal Oxide Nanostructures and Their Applications; vol.1-5; American Scientific Publishers, Los Angeles, USA (2010).

3. Chapters in a Book
H. V. Jansen, N. R. Tas and J. W. Berenschot; MEMS-based nanotechnology; In Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, American Scientific Publishers, Los Angeles, (2004), Vol. 5, pp.163-275.

H. Jónsson, G. Mills, and K. W. Jacobsen; Classical and quantum dynamics in condensed phase simulations; In Nudged Elastic Band Method for Finding Minimum Energy Paths of Transitions; World Scientific, Singapore (1998), pp. 387–405.

4. Conference Proceeding
J. Kimura and H. Shibasaki; Editors. Recent Advances in Clinical Neurophysiology. Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of EMG and Clinical Neurophysiology, (1995) October 15-19; Kyoto, Japan.

5. Patent
C. E. Larsen, R. Trip, and C.R. Johnson; Methods for procedures related to the electrophysiology of the heart; U.S. Patent 5,529,067, June 25 (1995).

6.Scientific Report
M. J. Field. R. E. Tranquada, J. C. Feasley, Editors. Health services research: work force and educational issues. Washington: National Academy Press; (1995) Contract No.: AHCPR282942008. Sponsored by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research.

7. Dissertation
S. J. Kaplan; Post-hospital home health care: the elderly's access and utilization; Ph.D. Thesis, St. Louis (MO), Washington University (1995).

Do not use the phrases "et al." and "ibid." in the reference section. Instead, the names of all authors in a reference must be listed.
 
PROOFS: Page proofs for the correction of printer's errors only will be dispatched to the corresponding author denoted with an asterik (*) unless otherwise requested. Alterations at this stage are not allowed as they are expensive and may have to be charged to the authors. The proofread copy and reprint order form must be returned within 72 hours.
 
OFFPRINTS: Authors may order offprints of articles with a minimum of 100 from American Scientific Publishers (ASP) prior to publication. An order form accompanying the page proofs will be sent directly to the corresponding author (*). Please return your offprint order form with the page proofs.
 
ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION: Upon acceptance of the manuscript for publication, authors should submit to the publisher a single file in MS WORD format (title/affiliations/abstract/keywords/text/references/figures/tables/captions) containing the final version of the manuscript with a signed Copyright Transfer Agreement. The preferred medium is Windows/MS-DOS or Macintosh having MS Word file or TeX. We are also able to accept line artwork/graphics if you supply us the source files to enables us to modify the artwork as required for the journal format.
 
WARRANTIES AND COPYRIGHTS: By submitting the manuscript, the authors warrant that the entire work is original and unpublished; it is submitted only to this Journal and all text, data, figures/tables or other illustrations included in the research article are completely original and unpublished, and these have not been previously published or submitted elsewhere in any form or media whatsoever. All authors are responsible for the complete contents of their manuscript. The author(s) warrant that the work contains no unlawful or libelous statements and opinions and liable materials of any kind whatsoever, do not infringe on any copyrights, intellectual property rights, personal rights or rights of any kind of others, and does not contains any plagiarized, fraudulent, improperly attributed materials, instructions, procedures, information or ideas that might cause any harm, damage, injury, losses or costs of any kind to person or property. Each author(s) agrees to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless American Scientific Publishers and the Editors for any breach of such warranties. It is authors' responsibility to obtain written copyright permissions from other sources (publishers) for reproduction of any figures, tables, photos, illustrations, text or other copyright materials from previously published work. It is the policy of American Scientific Publishers to own the copyright of all contributions it publishes. To comply with the U.S. Copyright Law, a Copyright Transfer Form that transfer copyright of the article to the publisher must be completed by the authors prior to publication of an accepted article in this journal. Authors must submit a signed copy of the Copyright Transfer Agreement with their manuscripts.

ETHICAL ISSUES: Authors cannot submit a manuscript for publication to other journals simultaneously. It is waste of valuable resources because editors and referees spent a great deal of time processing submitted manuscripts. It is also unethical to republish similar research articles (text/figures/tables) again because journals have limited page space and it most likely violates copyrights which have already been transferred to the first journal. Therefore, all journals require a signed author's copyright transfer agreement stating the originality of the research work submitted through a manuscript. As stated above that authors should submit original, new and unpublished research work to the journal. The ethical issues such as plagiarism, fraudulent and duplicate publication, violation of copyrights, authorship and conflict of interest are serious issues concerning ethical integrity when submitting a manuscript to a journal for publication.

WITHDRAWAL OF MANUSCRIPTS: If the author requests withdrawal of manuscript after submission within the time span when the manuscript is still in the peer-reviewing process with Editors/Referees, author is allowed to withdraw the manuscript without paying any withdrawal penalty whatsoever. However, it is unethical to withdraw a submitted manuscript from one journal if accepted by another journal. The withdrawal of manuscripts from the journals after submitting to the publisher will incur a withdrawal penalty from American Scientific Publishers. After the manuscript is accepted for publication either through journal editors or guest editors or conference organizers, the withdrawal is not permitted by American Scientific Publishers. If the authors or conference organizers or a third party withdraw manuscripts any time after final manuscripts have already been submitted to American Scientific Publishers for processing, the request is not entertained without a significant withdrawal penalty. Authors or conference organizers or a third party are not allowed to withdraw submitted manuscripts because the withdrawal wastes valuable manuscript processing time, money and works invested by the publisher. The authors or conference organizers or a third party must always pay $200 per page manuscript processing charges as withdrawal penalty to the publisher even if the withdrawal is permitted. The withdrawal of the conference papers by conference organizers will never be permitted and the conference organizers will be punished for withdrawal by paying a withdrawal penalty of US$500 per manuscript. Withdrawal of manuscripts is only allowed after withdrawal penalty has been fully paid to the American Scientific Publishers by the authors or conference organizers or a third party. Any reason whatsoever of withdrawal of submitted manuscripts is treated as invalid and completely unacceptable under any circumstances. Publisher is not responsible for any damages whatsoever resulting from this consequence of the author's or conference organizer's or a third party decision. All questions or differences whatsoever concerning manuscripts withdrawal from American Scientific Publishers whether as to construction or otherwise, shall be held in the County of Los Angeles, California, United States of America.

ABSTRACTING AND INDEXING: American Scientific Publishers has no control whatsoever over abstracting and indexing of their scientific journals in any types of databases (SCIE, Scopus, Compendex, PubMed, CPCI, etc.), therefore, the publisher does not guarantee and take any responsibilities whatsoever for any kind of abstracting and indexing coverage of the published work in any types of databases whatsoever.

UNAUTHORIZED CONFERENCES: American Scientific Publishers would like to caution potential authors that there are fraudulent activities going on in some countries where Conference Organizers are cheating fellow colleagues by falsely promising the publication of their research papers in SCIE/EI journals. It is very unfortunate to mention that some conference organizers are using the ASP logo and the journal titles/covers from ASP's websites without any authorization, which is completely illegal. Be aware that such conference organizers also disconnect emails and phones after receiving full payment for registration and publication charges from potential authors. Kindly be vigilant of such illegal activity. American Scientific Publishers is not responsible for such fraudulent activities and for any kind of damages brought on by the author's decisions. Author(s) hereby undertake to indemnify and hold harmless American Scientific Publishers and the Editors for any and all damages/claims/liabilities incurred from any and all actions by the conference organizers or any third party.

WARRANTIES FOR CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS: The Conference Organizer(s) submitting manuscripts to American Scientific Publishers warrant and represent that any material prepared by the Author(s) for the Journal shall be 100% new, original and unpublished in any form, shall not infringe upon or violate any copyright, trademark, obligation of confidentiality or other right or the privacy of others, or contain any libelous or unlawful statements or material or instructions that may cause harm or injury to a person or property; and that he/she will not include in the Journal any Article that the Editor believes or has any reason to believe may infringe or violate such rights or contain such material or matter or instructions that may cause harm or injury.

The Conference Organizer(s) submitting manuscripts to American Scientific Publishers represent and warrant that they have full power and authority to enter into this agreement. The Conference Organizer(s) agree to indemnify and hold the Publisher and any of its representatives harmless from any and all claims, demands, for any special, indirect, incidental, consequential or punitive damages of any kind whatsoever, including, but not limited to all liabilities, lost opportunities, costs, charges and expenses (including counsel fees) that the Publisher incurs or sustains arising out of any breach by the Conference Organizer(s) of the foregoing warranties and representations. The Conference Organizer(s) hereby agrees to indemnify and defend American Scientific Publishers from claims, costs, charges, damages, fees, expenses or liabilities of any kind whatsoever brought or preferred by any third party against Publisher.

The relationship between the parties is that of independent contractors and does not constitute a partnership and the Conference Organizer(s) shall have no authority to bind American Scientific Publishers in any way. All questions or differences whatsoever which may at any time hereafter arise between the parties hereto concerning this Agreement or the subject matter thereof and whether as to construction or otherwise, shall be held in the County of Los Angeles, California. These terms and conditions shall be construed and interpreted under the laws of the State of California.
 
 
 
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