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Impact factor: n/a

Time to first decision (all decisions): 17.5 days

Time to first decision (peer reviewed only): 22.0 days

Editors-in-Chief: Sabine Szunerits, Xueji Zhang

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The home for innovative research on sensors, sensing devices and systems

Sensors & Diagnostics is a gold open access journal for high-impact sensors research. We highlight emerging research on physical, chemical and bio sensors, as well as sensor devices and systems.

The development of new sensors helps to improve underlying techniques and tools. It can bring about more accurate diagnosis of health conditions, food and environmental monitoring, and interpretation of complex results in real-world conditions.

The work we publish brings key frontier techniques to multiple communities and helps towards the UN’s third sustainable development goal – to ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages.

Sensors & Diagnostics complements our existing journal Lab on a Chip, allowing it to retain its strong focus on microfluidics and miniaturised devices. Article processing charges will be waived until mid-2024.

Announcing our Editors-in-chief

I want the journal to educate, engage and encourage by publishing innovative research that will bridge the gap between sensing in the lab and field-based applications
Sabine Szunerits, Editor-in-chief
I became Editor-in-Chief of Sensors & Diagnostics because whilst there are journals that publish research on either sensors or diagnostics, this new journal is the first to cover both fields.
Xueji Zhang, Editor-in-chief

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The gold standard

Sensors & Diagnostics is gold open access, allowing crucial developments to be seen and utilised by anyone in the community. We have also waived APCs until mid-2024.
 

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Everyone welcome 

We handpick sensors research from across the natural sciences – think chemistry, but also physics, biology, engineering, medical research and more.
 

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Big picture thinking

We expect great things of our researchers and do everything we can to help them succeed in taking on global challenges, including the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Scope

Sensors & Diagnostics is a gold open access journal focused on high-impact, innovative sensing work.

The journal welcomes high-quality studies reporting innovative materials, novel detection principles, and/or significant development of known devices. All work must be of significant interest to the community, and, where relevant, must show in situ or real-life sample testing.

Sensors & Diagnostics welcomes contributions from across the breadth of related fields, including biomedical research, drug discovery, environment, food, medicine, and security and defence.

Topics include but are not limited to:

  • Sensors
    • Biosensors
      • intracellular sensors
      • cell chips
    • Chemical sensors
      • electronic
      • electromagnetic
      • optical
      • mechanical
      • thermal
      • gas sensors
      • single molecule sensors
      • arrays & multiplexing
    • Physical and physiological sensors
    • Integrated, wearable and/or implantable sensors
      • measuring nerve and/or heartbeat activity
      • wireless detection
      • anti-fouling surface chemistry
      • communication boards
  • Microfluidic devices
    • Analytical microsystems (includes lab-on-a-chip, micro total analysis systems (µTAS))
    • Sensor and sensor-array chemometrics
  • Molecular diagnostics
    • polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
    • enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)
    • lateral flow assay (LFA)
    • loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP)
  • Scanning based diagnostics
    • mammography/mastography
    • positron emission tomography (PET)
    • magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
    • single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)
  • Digital health and data management

See who's on the team

Meet the board members for our Sensors & Diagnostics journal.

Open access

There are no submission charges for Sensors & Diagnostics, and no article processing charges until mid-2024. As part of the submission process, authors will be asked to agree to the Sensors & Diagnostics open access terms & conditions.

We offer Sensors & Diagnostics authors a choice of two Creative Commons licences: CC BY or CC BY NC. Publication under these licences means that authors retain copyright of their article, but users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. Read our open access statement for further information.

All published articles are deposited with LOCKSS, CLOCKSS, Portico and the British Library for archiving.

Dive into the benefits of open access publishing

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Explore Royal Society of Chemistry open access journals

Read our Researchers’ voice report in response to Plan S

Article types

Sensors & Diagnostics publishes:

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

Article types

Communications

Communications must report preliminary research findings that are highly original, of immediate interest, and are likely to have a high impact on the journal readership. Authors should supply with their submission a justification of why the work merits urgent publication as a Communication; reviewers will be asked to judge the work on these grounds.

Communications are prioritised for rapid publication and are highly visible as they are published at the front of an issue. Although there is no page limit for a Communication, they will not normally exceed the length of four printed journal pages. Authors are encouraged to provide a succinct and relevant introduction to the research and to consider the use of the electronic supplementary information for additional material.

Full papers

Full papers must represent a significant development in the particular field, and are judged according to originality, quality of scientific content and contribution to existing knowledge. Authors are encouraged to emphasise the importance and potential impact of the research presented. Although there is no page limit for Full papers, appropriateness of length to content will be taken into consideration.

Reviews & Perspectives

Reviews and Perspectives must be high quality, authoritative, state-of-the-art accounts of the selected research field. They should be timely and add to the existing literature, rather than duplicate existing articles, and should be of general interest to the journal's wide readership.

All Reviews and Perspectives undergo rigorous peer review, in the same way as regular research papers.

Critical reviews report a detailed, balanced and authoritative current account of the existing state of knowledge on a particular facet of within the sensors and diagnostics field. Simple literature surveys will not be accepted for publication. Critical reviews should not contain unpublished original research. 

Tutorial reviews should provide an introduction and overview of an important topic of relevance to the journal readership. The topic should be of relevance to both researchers who are new to the field as well as experts and provide a good introduction to the development of a subject, its current state, and indications of future directions the field is expected to take. Tutorial reviews should not contain unpublished original research. 

Perspectives present an authoritative state-of-the-art account of a research field. A Perspective may take the form of a personal account of research or a critical analysis of a topic of current interest. In either form, some new unpublished research may be included.

Comments

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

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.

Author guidelines 

For general guidance on preparing an article please visit our Prepare your article page, the content of which is relevant to all our journals. 

To learn more about the Royal Society of Chemistry's policies and processes, including licensing, peer review and formatting, please refer to our Resources for authors page.

Prepare your article for submission

Significance Statement

All submitted manuscripts must include a Significance Statement (120 words maximum) that should categorically state how the work is significant. This statement should be different from the abstract and set the work in a broader context regarding sensing science. It should aim to answer the following questions.

  1. What is the innovative material or detection principle and/or significant development presented in this manuscript?
  2. What important advance does this present over previous work in the field?

This statement will be seen by the reviewers and will help ascertain the relevance of the article for a broad but technical audience. Manuscripts cannot be reviewed without this statement.

Peer review and editorial process

Sensors & Diagnostics follows a single-anonymised peer review process, with manuscripts handled by a team of internationally recognised associate editors, all practising scientists in the field. It consists of the following stages:

  • Phase 1: Your manuscript is initially assessed by an associate editor.
  • Phase 2: The associate editor solicits the expertise of at least two reviewers to assess your article and submit a report.
  • Phase 3: The associate editor handling your manuscript makes a decision based on the reviewer reports received. In the event that no clear decision can be made, another reviewer will be consulted.

Please refer to our processes and policies for full details including our appeals procedure.

Subscription information

Sensors & Diagnostics is fully gold open access – articles can be downloaded free from the website with no barriers to access.

Online only: ISSN 2635-0998

Copyright

Copyright is retained by authors when an open access licence is accepted, as with our standard licence to publish agreement. Full and accurate attribution to the original author is required for any re-use of the work. Find out more about copyright, licences and re-use permission.

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Sensors & Diagnostics

For pre-submission queries, please contact Anna Rulka
Email:
The Executive Editor

For post-submission queries, please contact Sarah Whitbread
Email:
The Editorial Production Manager

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