● Figures
Manuscript Templates
You can format your manuscript in any way you choose; the design and typesetting will be undertaken by IOP Publishing as part of the publication process. However, if you would prefer to use a template, please download the Word document and TeX template.
Manuscript Submissions
Materials Futures uses the ScholarOne Editorial System to keep a track of the manuscript status. For manuscript submission, please click on the "Submit an article" button. Please provide a cover letter indicating the originality of your papers. Manuscripts submitted to or under consideration for other journals cannot be submitted to Materials Futures.
Manuscript Structure
Title
The title shall be concise, informative and meaningful to the whole readership of the journal. It should include key terms to help make it more discoverable when people search online. Please avoid the use of long systemic names and non-standard or obscure abbreviations, acronyms, or symbols.
Authors
Authors' full names and institutions shall be listed. You have the option to include in parentheses authors' names in Chinese, Japanese or Korean following their English names. We recommend that you supply ORCID identifiers for all authors to avoid ambiguity.
If an author's current address is different from the address where the work was carried out, this should be explained in a footnote or acknowledgement.
Author Contribution: we encourage authors to specify contributions and responsibilities for each author in the article acknowledgement section. Otherwise, all co-authors will be taken to share full responsibility for all of the paper. Authors may wish to use a taxonomy such as CRediT to describe the contributions of each author.
Keywords
Please supply up to 5 keywords for your manuscript. Suitable keywords would make it more discoverable. When choosing keywords, think about the kinds of terms you would use when searching online for related articles.
Abstract
Your abstract should give readers a brief summary of no more than 300 words of your article, concisely describing the article's contents. The abstract should include key terms, especially in the first two sentences to increase its search engine discoverability. It should be informative and accessible, not only indicating the general aim and scope of the article, but also stating the methodology used, main results obtained, and conclusions drawn. The abstract should be complete in itself, not containing any undefined acronyms/abbreviations, table numbers, figure numbers, references, and equations.
Note on Video Abstracts
We invite all authors to submit a video abstract with their paper. This does not need to be sent in with the article when first submitted but we must receive this within three weeks of acceptance to avoid delaying publication of the article. More information on video abstracts can be found on our Publishing Support website.
Introduction
The article introduction should be concise and should describe the nature and background of the problem under investigation. It should set your work in the context of previous research with proper citing of relevant references.
Highly specialized terms and abbreviations used in the article should be expanded and defined in this section to make it accessible for readers.
Method
This section should provide sufficient details of the experiment, simulation, statistical test or analysis carried out to generate the results such that the method can be repeated by another researcher and the results reproduced.
Results
The results section should detail the main findings and outcomes of your study. You should use tables only to improve conciseness or where the information cannot be given satisfactorily in other ways such as histograms or graphs. Tables should be numbered serially and referred to in the text by number (Table 1, etc.). Each table should have an explanatory caption which should be as concise as possible.
Subheadings can be used in the following fashion:
3.1. Subheading
[equation here] (1)
Title 1 | Title 2 | Title 3 |
| entry 1 | dataa | datab |
| entry 2 | datac | data |
aTable footnotes should be given as superscript letters as 'a, b, c' etc.
bThe footnotes themselves should appear at the foot of the table.
cThe footnotes should consist of superscript lower case roman letters starting a, b, c, . . ., with each new footnote starting on a separate line.
3.2. Subheading
figure here
Figure 1. Figure Caption.
Note: Figures should be numbered in the order in which they are referred to in the text, using sequential numerals (e.g. figure 1, figure 2, etc.). If there is more than one part to a figure (e.g. figure 1(a), figure 1(b), etc.), the parts should be identified by a lower-case letter in parentheses close to or within the area of the figure.
Conclusion
This section should be used to highlight the novelty and significance of this work, discuss the significance of the current results, and compare them with previous work using relevant references.
Future Perspectives
Every Manuscript is required to include a “Future Perspectives” section with around 600 words for review paper and 200 words for original research. This section should be used for forward-looking perspectives on materials development in relevant research areas, the author’s view on where this field is going, where the challenges and breakthroughs might be etc. Authors are invited to be speculative, based on the insights garnered from the main body of the manuscript
Acknowledgements
An acknowledgements section shall be included before the References section. Funding and author contribution information should be acknowledged here. Any conflicts of interests shall also be stated in this section.
Funding: All sources of financial support for the project must be disclosed. The name of the funding agency and the grant number shall be given. Example: This work was partially funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through a National Cancer Institute grant R21CA141833. When completing the online submission form, we will also ask you to select funders and provide grant numbers in order to help you meet your funder requirements.
Conflicts of Interests: During the submission process all authors and co-authors are required to disclose any potential conflict(s) of interest. Examples include employment, consulting fees, research contracts, stock ownership, patent licenses, honoraria, advisory affiliations etc. that may conflict with the research work and its conclusion.
Authors' contributions: We encourage authors to make specific attributions of author contribution and responsibility, otherwise all co-authors will be taken to share full responsibility for all of the paper.
Authors are recommended to suggest three potential referees with detailed their institutional affiliation, their professional qualification to serve as a reviewer, and their contact information such as email address etc. Authors can also list reviewers of potential conflicts of interests. Please note that Materials Futures will consider but is not obliged to follow your recommendations.
This journal has adopted the IOP Publishing's standard data policy. Please check that your article complies with the policy before submission.
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.
Figures
Carefully chosen and well-prepared figures, such as diagrams and photographs, can greatly enhance your article. You are encouraged to prepare figures that are clear, easy to read and of the best possible quality and resolution. Figures are converted and sized to the journal template as part of the production process for accepted articles, but they are not normally edited further. It is your responsibility to ensure that the figures you supply are legible and technically correct. Micrographs should include a scale bar of appropriate size, e.g. 1 μm.
Characters should appear as they would be set in the main body of the article.
Figures should be numbered in the order in which they are referred to in the text, using sequential numerals (e.g. figure 1, figure 2, etc.).
If there is more than one part to a figure (e.g. figure 1(a), figure 1(b), etc.), the parts should be identified by a lower-case letter in parentheses close to or within the area of the figure.
File Types
For articles prepared using LaTeX2e, please make sure that your figures are all supplied as vector Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) and linked to your main TeX files using appropriate figure inclusion commands such as \includegraphics. For articles prepared using Word, in addition to being embedded in the text, all figures shall be submitted as separate graphics files as well. The preferred graphics format is EPS, which will produce the best quality results.
If you are unable to submit images in EPS, the following format can also be considered:
● TIFF
● JPEG
● PDF (and images embedded within PDF files)
● Images/drawings coded using TeX/LaTeX package
● Images/figures embedded in MS Word, Excel or PowerPoint
● Graphics application source files (Photoshop, Illustrator, CorelDraw).
Note on Vector Formats
The advantage of vector graphics is that they give the best possible quality at all output resolutions. In order to get the best possible results, please note the following important points:
● Fonts used should be restricted to the standard font families (Times, Helvetica, Courier or Symbol)
● Proprietary vector graphics formats such as Origin, Kaleidagraph, Cricket Graph and Gnu Plot should be converted to EPS for submission.
It is the Authors' responsibility to obtain written permission from the copyright holder(s) for any figures you have reused from other sources. This include any figures that you created yourself but have previously been published by another publisher, unless that publisher allows you to reuse them without permission under their author rights policy. Check individual publisher's policies for details. Many scientific, technical and medical publishers use RightsLink to grant permission. Information on how to request permission can usually be found on the website of each publisher. For further information about permissions and when permission is required, please see the Permissions section.
Inappropriate Images
Please carefully consider both the subject matter and provenance of images included in your work before submitting to the journal. If the submitted images could be potentially offensive to the journal's readership, IOP Publishing reserves the right to request that authors seek alternative images or other means to express the same results before the final version is published. As a specific example, IOP Publishing will not consider submissions which feature the Lena/Lenna image (a crop of an image of Lena Söderberg from a 1972 issue of Playboy magazine), as the image and its history conflicts with our commitment to inclusivity in science. Alternatives to the Lena image are widely available, see https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09500340.2016.1270881 for examples.
Figure captions should be included in the text and not in the graphics files. Figure captions should contain relevant key terms and be self-contained (avoiding acronyms) so that a reader can understand the figure without having to refer to the text. Figure captions should also reference the source of the figure if the figure has been reused from elsewhere.
Authors should note that the journal fully endorses the principles embodied in the Declaration of Helsinki. All investigations involving humans must be conducted in accordance with these principles and in accordance with local statutory requirements. Some recommended clinical registration databases can be found at clinicaltrials.gov, the EU Clinical Trials Register and International Clinical Trials Registry Platform. Articles relying on clinical trials should quote the trial registration number at the end of the abstract.
All investigations involving animal experimentation must be conducted in conformity with the 'Guiding Principles for Research Involving Animals and Human Beings' as adopted by The American Physiological Society.
Materials Futures requires all references to be written using the Vancouver numerical system. References are numbered sequentially through the text. The numbers should be given in square brackets, e.g. [1], [4-7] etc. The reference list at the end of the article then lists the references in numerical order. Ensure that all references are cited in the text and that all citations have a corresponding reference.
Reference Preparations
Please note the following:
Material that is footnote in nature should not be included in the reference list.
Copies of cited publications not yet available publicly should be submitted for the benefit of the referees.
Unpublished results and lectures should be cited for exceptional reasons only.
Please reference and link to the original Version of Record (where it was first published) rather than to other versions of an article and/or a link to a repository or third-party database
We discourage the referencing of online material hosted at web addresses that have no guarantee of perpetuity. Permanent or persistent web links should be used, as these are intended to remain unchanged for many years into the future, yielding hyperlinks that are less susceptible to 'link rot'. Examples of acceptable links include:
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)，PubMed identifier (PMID),
PubMed Central reference number (PMCID), SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) Bibliographic Code, and arXiv e-print number.
Before submitting your article, please ensure you have conducted a literature search to check for any relevant references you may have missed.
Journal Articles
Surname(s) Initial(s) Year Standard abbreviated journal title (in italics). Volume number (in bold). Page number, page range or article number.
Example:
[1] Cantillano C, Mukherjee S, Morales-Inostroza L, Real B, Cáceres-Aravena G, Hermann-Avigliano C, Thomson R R and Vicencio R A. 2018 New J. Phys. 20 033028.
For more than ten authors, the name of the first author should be given followed by et al.
If no individual is named as the author, the reference may be by a collaborative group of authors or by a corporate body, e.g.:
[1] The ASDEX Upgrade Team 2002 Nucl. Fus. 42 L11
If a collaboration is appended to one or more authors, the name of the collaboration must come before the year, e.g.:
[1] Nakamura K (Particle Data Group) 2010 J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 37 075021.
Books
Surname(s) Initial(s). Year. Book title (in italics) edn(optional) Surname(s) Initial(s) ed. (optional). Town of publication, Publisher. Page number, page range or article number (Optional).
Examples:
[1] Leung C-W and Ng C-K 2018 Advances in Ultrametric Analysis (Contemporary Mathematics vol 704) 1st edn ed Escassut A et al (Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society) p 91
Conference Proceedings
Surname(s) Initial(s) Year of publication Title of conference (in italics, initial letter of each significant word should be upper case) place and date (Optional), volume number (Optional), editors(optional), Surname(s) Initial(s) ed. (optional). Town of publication, Publisher. Page number, page range or article number (Optional).
Example:
[1] Mahanta N K and Abramson A R 2012 13th Intersociety Conf. on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems
Note: SPIE Proceedings, AIP Conference Proceedings and IEEE Transactions should be treated as journals:
[1] Levin A D and Shmytkova E A 2015 Title of the paper. Proc. SPIE 9526 95260P
[2] Smith M 2004 Title of the paper AIP Conf Proc. 94 340–9
[3] Stoffels E et al 2008 Title of the paper IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. 36 1441–57
Conference Series
Conference series should include the title of the conference and the title of the series but not the publisher.
[1] Holstein B R 2009 J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 173 012019
[2] Kramarenko V V et al 2016 IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci. 43 012029
[3] Adarsh S et al 2016 IOP Conf. Ser.: Mater. Sci. Eng. 149 012141
Web Links
Only permanent or persistent web links should be used in reference lists. Examples of acceptable links include:
[1] Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
[2] PubMed identifier (PMID)
[3] PubMed Central reference number (PMCID)
[4] SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) Bibliographic Code
[5] arXiv e-print number
Unpublished
[1] Jones R and Brown A 2011 arXiv:0912.1470
[2] Dobson C T J 1968 Magnetic transport in reaction–diffusion phenomena PhD Thesis Brunel University, London
[3] Chandrasekhar J R 2003 Modelling aspects of model based dynamic qos management by the performability manager Lecture Notes Institute of Technology Delhi, India
Pre-Prints
Surname(s) Initial(s). Year. Pre-print number
[1] Jones R and Brown A 2011. arXiv:0912.1470
Theses
Surname(s) Initial(s). Year. Type of thesis. Institution
[1] Dobson C T J 1968 Magnetic transport in reaction–diffusion phenomena PhD Thesis Brunel University, London
Lecture Notes
Author surname and initials. Year. Lecture title. Institution.
[1] Chandrasekhar J R 2003 Modelling aspects of model based dynamic qos management by the performability manager Lecture Notes Institute of Technology Delhi, India
Accepted or Submitted or in Preparation
Author surname and initials. Title of the paper. Year of publication. Standard abbreviated journal title (in italics). Either 'accepted' or 'submitted'.
[1] Jones R and Brown A 2011 Class. Quantum Grav. accepted
Non-Bibliographic text
References that do not contain bibliographic information (i.e. they do not refer to other pieces of work) should be set as a footnote within the text and cited at the appropriate location.
