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Impact factor: 3.498*
Publishing frequency: 12 issues per year
Indexed in Scopus and Web of Science
Chair: Heidi Goenaga-Infante

Scope

The Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry (JAAS) is the central journal for publishing innovative research on fundamentals, instrumentation, and methods in the determination, speciation and isotopic analysis of (trace) elements within all fields of application. This includes, but is not restricted to, the most recent progress, developments and achievements in all forms of atomic and elemental detection, isotope ratio determination, molecular analysis, plasma-based analysis and X-ray techniques.

The journal welcomes full papers, communications, technical notes, critical and tutorial review articles, editorials, and comments, in addition to the Atomic Spectrometry Updates (ASU) literature reviews that are prepared by an expert panel.

Submissions are welcome in the following areas, but note this list reflects the current scope and authors are strongly encouraged to contact the Editorial team if they believe that their work offers potentially new and emerging research relevant to the journal remit:

Fundamental studies in the following.

  • New and existing sources for atomic emission, absorption, fluorescence and mass spectrometry and those that provide both atomic and molecular information
  • Sample introduction techniques for solids, liquids, gases
  • Improvements in sensitivity, selectivity, precision, accuracy and/or robustness
  • Isotope ratio measurements, including techniques for improving precision and mass bias correction
  • Single channel and multichannel simultaneous detection systems
  • Chemometrics, statistics, calibration techniques and internal standardisation
  • Theoretical and numerical modelling of fundamental processes related to all of the above methodologies

Novel or improved methodologies in areas of application including, but not limited to the following.

  • Biosciences, including elemental, speciation and isotopic analysis in biological systems, immunoassays based on metal-labeled antibodies, bio-imaging, and nanoparticle toxicology
  • Geochemistry
  • Environmental science
  • Materials science, including engineered nanoparticles and quantum dots
  • Metrology, including reference materials
  • Forensic analysis
  • Food and agricultural sciences
  • Energy
  • Archaeometry

Molecular analysis.

  • Molecular sources for elemental and isotopic analysis
  • Atomic sources for molecular analysis
  • Atomic and molecular techniques simultaneously used for complementary chemical information

All contributions are judged on originality and quality of scientific content, and appropriateness of length to content of new science.

Article types

JAAS publishes:

  • Communications
  • Full papers
  • Technical notes
  • Critical reviews
  • Tutorial reviews
  • Perspectives
  • Comments
See more information about these article types

Communications

These must report preliminary research findings that are highly original, of immediate interest and are likely to have a high impact on the analytical spectroscopy community. Communications are given priority treatment, are fast-tracked through the publication process and appear prominently at the front of the journal in a dedicated Communications section.

The key aim of Communications is to present innovative chemical concepts with important analytical implications. As such, Communications need only demonstrate 'proof of principle': it is not expected that the analytical figures of merit will necessarily surpass those of existing, highly refined analytical techniques.

Authors should provide at the time of submission a short paragraph explaining why their work justifies urgent publication as a Communication. Ideally, a Full paper in JAAS should follow each Communication.

There is no page limit for communications in JAAS, however the length should be commensurate with scientific content. Authors are encouraged to make full use of electronic supplementary information in order to present more concise articles.

Full papers

Full papers must represent a significant development in the particular field of analysis and are judged according to originality, quality of scientific content and contribution to existing knowledge. Although there is no page limit for Full papers, appropriateness of length to content of new science will be taken into consideration.

Technical notes

These should be brief descriptions of instrumental developments, techniques or applications that offer definite advantages over those already available.

Technical notes should offer practical solutions to problems that are of interest to the JAAS readership and merit publication, but neither a Full paper nor a Communication is justified. Publication as a Technical note does not diminish the importance of the article. This article type is a recognition that much of the presented material has been reported previously, and allows a focus on the improvements in the method and the results obtained.

Wherever appropriate, authors of Technical notes are encouraged to use references to the established technique, explaining in full only what is novel about the proposed approach. The length of a Technical note should be commensurate with its scientific content. Authors are encouraged to make full use of electronic supplementary information in order to present more concise articles.

Review articles

A range of review articles are published in JAAS. Potential writers should contact the editorial office before embarking on their work.

Critical review

Critical reviews should be definitive, evaluative reviews and must provide a critical overview of the chosen topic area. Authors should be selective in the choice of material, offering personal opinions where appropriate, whilst still covering all the important topics in the field, and indicating possible future developments.

Tutorial review

Tutorial reviews are written from a personal point of view, and ideally should be the first review of a new significant area, bringing together the results of various primary publications.

Tutorial reviews are intended to interest a large number of readers and should be written at a level that could be understood by an advanced undergraduate student.

The intention is to increase awareness and understanding of the chosen topic area for workers/researchers already involved in the field, workers changing the direction/emphasis of their work and a broad based non-specialist (graduate and post-graduate) audience, with a view to informing them of the most recent developments in the area.

Perspective

Perspectives are written at a philosophical level either on a particular aspect of analytical spectroscopy or on a topic of relevance or potential relevance to the community.

The article should be easily understandable to a non-specialist in the field. At the same time, Perspectives should provide an authoritative discussion of the area concerned.

Authors are encouraged to identify areas where further developments are imminent, in urgent need of being addressed, and any areas that may be of significance to the analytical science community in general.

Comments

Comments and Replies are a medium for the discussion and exchange of scientific opinions between authors and readers concerning material published in JAAS.

For publication, a Comment should present an alternative analysis of and/or new insight into the previously published material. Any Reply should further the discussion presented in the original article and the Comment. Comments and Replies that contain any form of personal attack are not suitable for publication. 

Comments that are acceptable for publication will be forwarded to the authors of the work being discussed, and these authors will be given the opportunity to submit a Reply. The Comment and Reply will both be subject to rigorous peer review in consultation with the journal’s Editorial Board where appropriate. The Comment and Reply will be published together.

Journal specific guidelines

For guidance on preparing your article please visit our Prepare your article and Resources for authors pages, the content of which is relevant to all of our journals. Note that some journals have additional specific guidelines.

All submitted Communications, Technical notes and Full papers must include a 'Significance to JAAS' statement (no more than 100 words) that states how the work fits within the scope of the journal and highlights the novelty of the research to the atomic spectrometry community.
 
The statement should be written in plain language that is accessible to a broad, non-technical audience. It should not be a summary of the work reported, please do not repeat the article’s abstract. The statement will be seen by reviewers during the peer review process.

Bibliographic references should be listed at the end of the manuscript in numerical order as they appear in the manuscript. Bibliographic details should be cited in the order: year, volume, page, and must include the article title. For example: Érico Marlon de Moraes Flores, Analytical atomic spectrometry in South America – increasing the development and international cooperation in atomic spectrometric analysis, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2018, 33, 2032-2033.

Methods & techniques covered in JAAS.

List of techniques

Plasma based methods

  • Atomic Absorption (GD-AAS)
  • Atomic Emission (GD-AES, ICP-AES, MIP-AES)
  • Atomic Fluorescence (GD-AFS, ICP-AFS)
  • Atomic Mass Spectrometry (GD-MS, ICP-MS, MIP-MS)
  • Plasma-based sources for ambient desorption-ionisation mass spectrometry
  • Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS)
  • Laser ablation molecular isotopic spectrometry (LAMIS)
  • Atmospheric-pressure glow discharges
  • Microplasma sources
  • Tandem and modulated sources

Flame and furnace based methods

  • Atomic Absorption (AAS, FAAS, GF-AAS) continuum-source AAS (CSAAS), continuum-source molecular absorption spectrometry (CSMAS)
  • Atomic Emission (AES, FAES)
  • Atomic Fluorescence (AFS)

Atomic mass spectrometry

  • ICP-MS
  • Glow discharge MS (GD-MS)
  • Spark source MS (SSMS)
  • Thermal ionisation MS (TIMS)
  • Resonance ionisation MS (RIMS),
  • Accelerator MS
  • Gas source isotope ratio MS (IRMS)
  • Instrumentation
    • Quadrupole MS (QMS)
    • Sector Field MS (SF-MS)
    • Multi-collector MS (MC-MS)
    • Time-of-flight MS (ToF-MS)
    • Ion-trap and Orbitrap MS
    • Distance-of-flight MS
    • tandem MS
  • Novel ion sources

Laser optical spectroscopy

  • Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS)
  • Laser ablation molecular isotopic spectroscopy (LAMIS)
  • Laser enhanced ionisation (LEI)
  • Cavity Ringdown Spectroscopy (CRDS)
  • X-Ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF)
  • Total reflection X-ray fluorescence Spectrometry (TXRF)
  • X-Ray absorption spectrometry (XAS)
  • Extended X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy (EXAFS)
  • X-Ray absorption near edge structure spectroscopy (XANES)
  • Particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE)
  • Synchrotron radiation (SR)

Surface analytical techniques

  • Secondary ion MS (SIMS)
  • Sputtered neutral MS (SNMS)
  • Auger spectroscopy
  • Electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis (ESCA)
  • Glow discharge spectroscopy (GD-AES, GD-MS)
  • Rutherford-Backscattering spectrometry (RBS)

Coupled techniques that involve the following:

  • Laser ablation (LA)
  • Spark ablation
  • Electrothermal vaporisation (ETV)
  • Pneumatic and non-pneumatic nebulisation
  • Flow injection and sequential injection analysis (FIA)
  • Liquid chromatographic techniques including LC, HPLC, UPLC
  • Gas chromatography (GC)
  • Capillary electrophoresis (CE)
  • Gel electrophoresis (GE)
  • Field flow fractionation (FFF)
  • Cytometry
  • Microfluidics
  • Vapour generation

Advances in sampling and sample preparation techniques

  • Solid phase extraction (SPE)
  • Digestion - Microwave, UV, cold plasma, high-pressure assisted digestion
  • Fusion
  • Vapour generation
  • Methods for target element or species isolation/enrichment prior to elemental, speciation or isotopic analysis

Readership information

Readership is cross-disciplinary and includes the following fields.

  • Atomic spectrometry
  • Mass spectrometry
  • Biomedical and clinical science
  • Pharmaceutical analysis
  • Geochemistry and environmental science
  • Toxicology
  • Materials and nanoanalysis
  • Forensics and archaeometry

The readership spans researchers in universities and related academic institutes, government and research organisations, industry, independent laboratories and consulting firms.

JAAS Emerging Investigator Lectureship

This Lectureship recognises early career researchers, who have made a significant contribution in the area of atomic spectrometry, in their independent academic career.

This award is presented annually. Nominations are now open and submissions must be received by January 31st, 2021.

Nominations are welcome from anyone and are to be sent to the Editorial Office with a completed nomination form (requested from the Editorial Office) and a letter of recommendation. Self-nomination is not permitted.

The nominations are then shortlisted and the winner selected by the JAAS Editorial Board.

The recipient of this award receives: the opportunity to present at a relevant high-profile international meeting and a contribution of up to £2,000 to cover associated travel and accommodation costs. Also, a certificate and an invitation to contribute a primary research or review article to JAAS.

Latest recipient: George L. Donati, Wake Forest University, USA

Access the web collection here.

Subscription information

JAAS is part of RSC Gold and Analytical Science subscription packages.

Online only 2021: ISSN 1364-5544 £2,211 / $3,011

*2019 Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate Analytics, 2020)

Journals, books & databases

JAAS

Pre-submission queries please contact Philippa Ross, Executive Editor
Email:
Send us an email

Post-submission queries please contact Jack Busby, Editorial Production Manager
Email:
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