The Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology

General Information and Scope of the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology

The Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology is an international, peer-reviewed, Open Access journal. It provides a unique platform for rapid publication without any charges (free for author and reader) – diamond open access. The content is freely accessible 365 days a year to any user worldwide. Articles are available online immediately upon publication and are publicly archived in all major repositories. In addition, it provides a platform for publishing thematic issues (theme-based collections of articles) on topical issues in nanoscience and nanotechnology.

The journal is published and completely funded by the Beilstein-Institut, a non-profit foundation located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The editor-in-chief is Professor Gerhard Wilde, – University of Münster. He is supported by more than 20 associate editors who are responsible for a particular subject area within the scope of the journal.

The journal publishes high quality research and reviews in all areas of nanoscience and nanotechnology. It provides a broad coverage of both fundamental and applied research, including aspects of chemistry, physics and biology as well as materials science and engineering. The scope of the journal includes experimental and theoretical aspects as well as nanotechnology applications including (but not limited to) topics such as:

• Self-assembly, self-organization and pattern formation on the nanoscale
• Nano-optics, nanophotonics, and nanoscale optical microscopy
• Nanomechanics, nanotribology and nanomotors
• Nanomagnetics
• Nanoelectronics and molecular electronics
• Nanomaterials and nanocomposites
• Nanostructured surfaces and interfaces
• Biomimetic surfaces, interfaces and systems; bio-inspired nanotechnology
• Carbon-based nanotechnology, including graphene, nanotubes, fullerenes and related structures
• 2D materials, including graphene and graphene-related materials
• Nanoparticles and quantum dots
• Nanolithography, soft lithography, micro- and nano-electromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS)
• Energy applications of nanotechnology, including sensors, solar cells, catalysts, energy conversion and storage, environmental remediation
• Nanobiology and nanobiotechnology
• Nanomedicine, drug delivery (excluding clinical trials)
• Scanning probe techniques and sensors 
• Advances in electron and ion microscopy
• Chemical nanotechnology
• Theoretical aspects and concepts in nanotechnology, nanoinformatics
• Nanotechnology applications

Journal Impact Factor

The current Journal Impact Factor is given on the Journal Statistics page.

Key Facts

  • Open Access
    All articles published in the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology are freely accessible for everyone immediately upon publication: no user registration is required. The journal has been awarded the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) Seal and collaborates with other nonprofit organizations and initiatives to promote nonprofit scholarly publishing.
  • No Publication Fees
    The publication of all articles in the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology is free of charge. The journal is published and fully financed by the Beilstein-Institut – publishing in the journal is offered without any article processing fees or other publication charges.
  • General Publication Criteria
    The main criteria for acceptance of an article for publication in the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology are high quality, originality, novelty and importance.
  • Peer Review
    All articles published in the journal are fully refereed by experts in the corresponding subfield of nanotechnology. Detailed information about the review process is given in the Instructions for Referees. The assigned editor makes a final acceptance decision based on the referees' recommendations. The identity of referees is not disclosed to authors or other referees throughout the process. The anonymized referee reports are sent to the authors, but are not publically viewable.
  • Authors Retain Copyright
    Authors retain full copyright of their articles. The articles of the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology are published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
  • Archived in PubMed Central and Other Repositories
    Articles of the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology are deposited in PubMed Central (the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature), Europe PubMed Central (the European equivalent of PubMed Central), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Portico, and the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (the national German archive of publications). Furthermore, authors are free to deposit the version required by their university in their university archives.
  • Indexed in Databases
    Articles of the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology are regularly indexed in Google, Google Scholar, SciFinder (Chemical Abstracts Service), ISI Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics), Scopus (Elsevier) and others. All articles published in the journal are given a digital object identifier (DOI).
  • Preprints
    Authors submitting to the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology are given the option to publish a preprint version of their manuscript in the Beilstein Archives (Full Research Papers and Letters only). The submitting author must provide an ORCID iD to publish a preprint. In addition, manuscripts that have been posted on other non-commercial preprint servers (e.g., arXiv, bioRxiv) or the author’s university repository will be considered for publication. Authors are given the opportunity to include this information during the submission process. Work that has been previously published or is under consideration for publication in another journal, will not be considered.
  • No Page Limit
    There is no page limit for articles in the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology. Authors should provide enough background information to support the aim of study and the main claims of the paper, but unimportant or trivial information should not be included. The article length should be commensurate with its scientific content.
  • Data Policy
    Information and data in the experimental section, together with supplementary material in the supporting information files should describe the experimental methods used in the work in sufficient detail to allow understanding and replication of the work. Furthermore, when possible, all data associated with and supporting the research results in an article should be made freely available to allow others to verify and build on. Authors are encouraged to deposit relevant data in appropriate and publicly accessible databases and repositories or may include this as supporting information files.
  • Data and Text Mining
    The journal is part of the Open Access subset at PubMed Central, where articles can be downloaded in NLM XML and PDF format. Moreover, all articles can be downloaded from the journal website in Beilstein XML format using the following syntax:
    http://www.beilstein-journals.org/<journal code>/content/xml/<issn>-<vol #>-<article #>.xml
    For example: http://www.beilstein-journals.org/bjnano/content/xml/2190-4286-8-21.xml
  • Similarity Check
    All submitted manuscripts are screened using the software Similarity Check and other resources to check for overlapping or similar text in previously published articles. Please refer to our Instructions for Authors for details regarding our plagiarism policy.

Article Types

  • Full Research Paper
    Reports of results from original research
  • Review
    Comprehensive and authoritative summary of any subject within the scope of the journal
  • Letter
    Brief reports of original research
  • Perspective
    Perspective articles present science-based views of experts on key topics of broad interest to the scientific community. Examples include but are not limited to constructive critical discussions about controversial topics within a discipline or field of research, insights regarding the impacts or future of a given area, the outline and examination of important unanswered questions and topics related to education and science culture.
  • Commentary
    Commentary articles directly comment on an article published either in the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology or in a different journal with a matching scope. In doing so, they provide a focused critical or alternative viewpoint and are typically narrowly focused and concise.

Citing Articles in the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology

Articles published in the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology should be cited according to the ACS Style Guide as shown in the following example. It is recommended to include the DOI in the reference.

Rauwel, P.; Galeckas, A.; Salumaa, M.; Ducroquet, F.; Rauwel, E. Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1075–1085. doi: 10.3762/bjnano.7.101

Manuscript Submission

Authors should submit their manuscripts electronically to the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology using the Beilstein Publishing System. The system allows authors to keep informed about of the status of their submission. Details of the submission process and acceptable file formats are given in the Submission Checklist and the Instructions for Authors. The Editoral Policy and Workflow describes our editorial policies and the production workflow. 

We encourage the submitting author and all co-authors to provide their ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript; this information will appear with the published article.

When submitting a manuscript intended for a thematic issue, please include the thematic issue title and the name of the guest editor in the cover letter.

Registration with the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology

Please register if you wish to be kept informed about the latest articles published in the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology via email alerts and for ease in submitting future manuscripts.

You can also stay informed of the latest BJNANO news and top articles by following us on Twitter @BeilsteinInst and LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beilstein-institut.

Other Beilstein-Institut Open Science Activities