Information for Authors

Scope: IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics (J-PV) is a peer-reviewed, archival publication reporting original and significant research results that advance the field of photovoltaics. PV is diverse in its science base ranging from semiconductor and PV device physics to optics and the materials sciences. The journal publishes articles that connect this science base to PV systems. The scope of the J-PV incorporates: fundamentals and new concepts of PV conversion, chalcogenide thin film based devices, silicon-based devices, organic and hybrid perovskite based devices, high efficiency mulitjunctions and their applications in concentrator and space PV, characterization methods. The scope also encompasses module manufacturing, PV systems level issues, and reliability. Higher level topics such as resource planning, forecasting, policy matters, and sus- tainability related topics may be considered if the focus of the manuscript is on the photovoltaic system rather than issues external to the PV itself.

Authors are advised that for all of the above topics the focus of works must be on photo- voltaics. Manuscripts deserving of publication may nonetheless be rejected if they would fit better in journals more focused on the topic of the manuscript outside of photovoltaics. A common example of this is works on power electronics used in photovoltaic systems such as inverters. In this case many manuscripts are rejected and recommended for submission to, for example, the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics journal as the key point of the work may be the circuitry for inversion of dc power to ac power rather than on how the system interacts with the photovoltaic power generation system.

Submission of a manuscript amounts to the assurance that it has received proper clearance from all authors listed, from the authors' companies or institutions, that it has not been copy- righted, published, or accepted for archival publication elsewhere while under consideration by the IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics. In cases where there is even a potential for significant overlap between the manuscript and previous work, it is the responsibility of the author(s) to provide references to pertinent previous publication and copies/preprints of manuscripts un- dergoing pre-publication review elsewhere. Failure to do so will compromise the peer review process and render such papers ineligible for publication.

The articles in this journal are peer reviewed in accordance with the requirements set forth in the IEEE PSPB Operations Manual (sections 8.2.1.C & 8.2.2.A). Each published article was reviewed by a minimum of two independent reviewers using a single-blind peer review process, where the identities of the reviewers are not known to the authors, but the reviewers know the identities of the authors. Articles will be screened for plagiarism. Corresponding authors from low-income countries are eligible for waived or reduced open access APCs.

Pre-submission Editorial Services: It is the authors' responsibility to prepare a publica- tion-quality manuscript. Manuscripts with improper use of language, symbols, or units may not be sent out for review in order to conserve limited volunteer reviewer resources needed to evaluate the technical merits of a submission. English language editing services can help refine the language of your article and reduce the risk of rejection without review. IEEE authors are eligible for discounts at several language editing services; to learn more, visit the IEEE Author Center. Please note these services are fee-based and do not guarantee acceptance.

Plagiarism: Manuscripts that are found to have plagiarized others including self-plagia- rism; copying someone else's work without appropriate credit, that contain a significant cross- over with another manuscript by the same authors or other author(s); copying or reusing of one's own prior work without appropriate citation, or that do not specifically cite prior work, are subject to penalty under the IEEE policies governing publications. For more information on these policies please visit: https://www.ieee.org/documents/opsmanual.pdf.

Submission Requirement: All IEEE journals require an Open Researcher and Contribu- tor ID (ORCID) for all authors. ORCID is a persistent unique identifier for researchers and functions similarly to an article's Digital Object Identifier (DOI). ORCIDs enable accurate attribution and improved discoverability of an author's published work. The author will need a registered ORCID in order to submit a manuscript or review a proof in this journal.

Submission Procedure: All manuscripts must be submitted electronically using IEEE's web-based Author Submission and Peer Review System, ScholarOne Manuscripts, http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jpv. Once the list and order of authors has been established, it should not be altered without permission of all living authors. If an author is added or re- moved from any paper a signed acknowledgement by all authors, stating that they are aware of and agree to the change must be submitted to the editorial office. This includes new authors as well as authors no longer on the byline.

Submission Format: Authors must submit their manuscripts in the two column format us- ing the IEEE template style. The font sizes and line spacing must not be altered when using the template. The template and further guidelines on the preparation of manuscripts can be obtained from the IEEE Tools for Authors.

Supplementary Materials: The Journal of Photovoltaics accepts submissions of supple- mentary materials for review. We highly encourage authors to take advantage of this oppor- tunity to provide supporting information in their paper that enhances the description of their work but is not essential to the main body of the document.

The supplementary material may include additional text related to topics such as proofs of results, descriptions of additional simulations, etc. When supplementary material is present, the equations, theorems, tables, and figures, etc., should all be numbered consecutively to those in the article. If you are submitting a video or audio file, please include a text file with a description of your supplemental material.

All supplementary material must be submitted as separate files and must not be included within the same PDF file as the main paper submission. For details, please visit IEEE Author Center.

Manuscript Length: The standard length for regular papers is six published pages. Man- uscripts longer than six pages will be considered, however, a longer manuscript may take comparatively more time to process. Hence, author(s) are encouraged to provide the most value per page by presenting their work as compactly as possible without being telegraphic or incomplete. Each paper must include an abstract of no more than 200 words. It is suggested that long manuscripts presenting more than one key result should be broken into multiple submissions, each clearly focused on one key finding.

Briefs: Are short reports of preliminary results on completed work that are of current inter- est to many workers in the field. The standard length of a Brief is 3 published pages excluding references, bios and photos.

Correspondence: Includes comments on material previously published in the Journal, sug- gestions for new work and errata.

Review Papers: Review articles are encouraged for submission to J-PV where they will provide an important overview of a core topic of the field or review a subject with the goal of resolving an ongoing debate concerning that subject. It is strongly recommended that authors planning to prepare a review article contact the Editor in Chief with a proposal and outline of their planned review prior to preparing the manuscript to assure that the work will be appropriate to the journal. The purpose of a review paper is to succinctly review progress in a particular topic. Overall, the paper summarizes the current state of knowledge of the topic. It creates an understanding of the topic for the reader by discussing the findings presented in research papers. A review paper synthesizes the results from several primary literature papers to produce a coherent argument about a topic or focused description of a field. Review articles often consider conflicting results presented by various members of the PV community and present arguments for which conclusions are most compelling. or refute a point of view. A good review paper should educate a technically trained reader who is not an expert on the top- ic on the current understanding of the subject, including key experimental results, competing theories, unanswered questions and areas for further investigation.

It is not a place for presenting new data, although new insights taken from published data are welcomed. It is not a place for one investigator to showcase only his/her own work. The standard length of a review paper is twelve to sixteen pages.

Guidelines for Submission of an Enhanced Manuscript: This guideline is for submitting a J-PV manuscript that has been published, in part, in another IEEE venue, typically in a confer- ence proceedings. The enhanced manuscript is submitted as any other manuscript. Since IEEE holds copyright to your initial paper (e.g., proceedings), no reprint permissions are required. IEEE publications policy has two relevant requirements for publishing enhancements of papers to ensure clarity in the literature. First, the initial paper must be cited in the enhanced version. Sec- ond, the author(s) must explain in the introduction specifically how the initial paper has been en- hanced. It is anticipated that at least a third of enhanced manuscripts contain relevant material that was not in the initial paper. This is not meant to be a rigid quantitative requirement but rather a guideline for editors and reviewers. There is no deadline for submitting an enhanced manuscript.

Suggestions for Manuscript Enhancement: The following comments are only pointers and not intended to be comprehensive, but should improve the likelihood that an editor will recom- mend a conference paper for publication. The most obvious enhancement is that new results have been generated, for example, by additional experiments or modeling. The interpretation of the results may also be expanded. Questions posed by conference attendees at the time of presentation can often give clues to weaknesses in the presentation, pointing out areas of ambi- guity, critical gaps in the data, or questionable conclusions. It may also be appropriate to expand the discussion portion to explain subtleties or clarify the domain of validity of the conclusions. The enhanced manuscript may incorporate a more complete list of references and expand the introduction to explain better why the study was needed or why a particular model was chosen to simulate an application. Figure labels and captions may be able to be improved, or new figures may be necessary to better illustrate a point. Removing redundant figures may also be useful. De- tails of an experimental setup, including sample preparation, equipment used and measurement method may have been missed. However, methods and equipment that are not unique should be referenced only. Authors may find these useful as pointers to areas that need additional attention.

References: Each reference cited must have a complete list of authors (no et al.), complete titles, first and last page numbers, month and year. Authors should provide supporting docu- mentation for cited references not yet published.

Review Process: The review process averages eight to ten weeks. The author will be noti- fied of the editor's decision based on the reviewers' recommendations. The reviewers' com- ments are confidential and must not be reproduced, published or distributed.

Final Manuscript: Upon acceptance for publication, the corresponding author will be pro- vided with the final requirements for publication. Detailed instructions for preparing electronic files are available here.

Open Access: This publication is a hybrid journal, allowing either Traditional manuscript submission or Open Access (author-pays OA) manuscript submission. Upon submission, if you choose to have your manuscript be an Open Access article, you commit to pay the dis- counted $2,345 OA fee if your manuscript is accepted for publication in order to enable un-restricted public access. Any other application charges (such as over-length page charge and/ or charge for the use of color in the print format) will be billed separately once the manuscript formatting is complete but prior to the publication. If you would like your manuscript to be a Traditional submission, your article will be available to qualified subscribers and purchasers via IEEE Xplore. No OA payment is required for Traditional submission.

Page Charges: Upon acceptance for publication, the author's company or institution will be requested to pay a charge of $110 per printed page to cover part of the cost of publication. Page charges for this journal, like those for journals of other professional societies, are not obligatory, nor a prerequisite for publication. There has been a significant decrease in authors' willingness to pay voluntary page charges. The outstanding reputation and high quality of J-PV depends in part on the collection of these charges. Detailed payment instructions will be sent during the page proof request.

Color Figures: The color-in-print charge is a flat rate of $275 per figure. The corresponding authors of the article will have the opportunity to address the color-in-print option during an "Article Setup" step. All invoices and payments are handled through an automated pay- ment portal system. The payment portal allows various payment types such as credit card, bank wire transfers, check, pre-approved waivers, special payment circumstances, and third party billing. If you have any questions about article processing charges, please contact apcinquiries@ieee.org.

Illustrations: Previously published illustrations (figures, graphs, tables, drawings, etc.) must be so indicated by the line Reprinted from (name of author, title of paper, journal or source, vol., page no., and date) below the figure caption. It is the author's responsibility to secure permission from the previous publisher to reprint the material.

Photos and Bios: All papers submitted for publication should include a brief biography and photograph of the author(s).

Graphical Abstract: This journal accepts graphical abstracts and they must be peer reviewed. For more information about graphical abstracts and their specifications, please visit.

Clearance and Copyright: It is the policy of the IEEE to own the copyright to the tech- nical contributions it publishes on behalf of the interests of the IEEE, its authors, and their employers, and to facilitate the appropriate reuse of this material by others. To comply with the United States Copyright Law, authors are required to sign a digital version of the IEEE Copyright Form upon acceptance of the manuscript. Authors will automatically be redirected to the eCF (electronic Copyright Form) after they have submitted the final files.

IEEE supports the publication of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK) author names in the native language alongside the English versions of the names in the author list of an article. For more information, please visit the IEEE Author Center