Optics Express Supplementary Material
Kerby Reynolds
Optica Publishing Group journals allow authors to include supplementary materials, such as additional text, figures and equations, multimedia files, machine-readable data tables, large data sets, and design and code files. Such materials are subject to peer-review along with the rest of the paper and should be uploaded during the manuscript submission process in our Prism system.
Authors may include, in addition to the primary manuscript, a document that provides supplementary information such as expanded descriptions of materials and methods. The supplementary information will be published as a PDF file that is linked to the primary manuscript. Although the supplementary information will not be copyedited, it will undergo full peer review and be considered part of the peer-reviewed manuscript. As such, a supplemental PDF file should present only information that would be useful and worthwhile for the reader, for example, details that would be necessary to reproduce an experiment. The article, however, must be coherent without the supplemental PDF file. Supplemental PDF files are not permitted with Optica memoranda or Opinions in Optical Materials Express. At this time, a supplemental PDF is not accepted for partner titles JOCN and Photonics Research.
The supplemental document should generally be included as a native Word or LaTeX file that will be converted to PDF and be linked to the primary manuscript. Use the supplemental document template. Supplemental documents are not copyedited and so should be prepared carefully.
The supplementary materials document may contain additional figures, tables, equations, etc. Such items should be numbered with an uppercase "S" to identify them as supplementary. For example, number the first figure in the supplemental document "Fig. S1"; the first table, "Table S1"; etc.
The supplementary materials document may contain a reference list. The reference list should follow our citation style and should be checked carefully, since no copyediting will be performed by staff.
Spreadsheet applications such as MS Excel can read and save to CSV format. To the extent possible, CSV files should be self-contained. For example, they should include meaningful column heads and provide explanatory notes as appropriate in a comments section at the top of the file. CSV files may not contain binary information such as images or equation objects and should not exceed the row, column, and character limits supported by MS Excel (for example, 65,536 rows by 256 columns) or other popular spreadsheet applications.
Large datasets should be included as integral material that is peer reviewed along with the manuscript. Datasets can be uploaded to the our Figshare platform as part of the Prism submission processes or be placed in an appropriate external repository.
Code and design files used by researchers are often tied to proprietary formats such as SolidWorks or Matlab, and we cannot reasonably ensure robust vetting, archiving, or display of such material. Nevertheless, such files can be valuable to readers and may be included as "additional" material with a paper, provided that the files are relevant to the paper and are stored and cited according to our guidelines.
Code and design files can be uploaded to the Optica Publishing Group Figshare platform as part of the Prism submission process or reside in an open, archival repository as described for deposits of large datasets. The items should be cited as described above for large datasets, and first mentions should use the following convention to increase visibility to readers: ". . . as we show in Code 1 (Ref. [3])."
This document, which may include supplementary information such as expanded descriptions of materials and methods, will be published as a PDF linked to the primary article. The supplemental file should only present information that would be useful and worthwhile for the reader, for example, details that would be necessary to reproduce an experiment. The article, however, must be coherent without the supplemental PDF file. Please see the Author Guidelines for Supplementary Materials for more information.
Supplementary documents are not copyedited and so should be prepared carefully with the template provided. Note that a coversheet with final article title, author block, publication date, journal branding, and other details will be added to your supplemental document during production. Do not include such details directly in this document..
The following documents are provided to inform authors, editors, reviewers, and readers of Optica Publishing Group's ethical policies and guidelines. Our journals are members of COPE, and submissions are screened for plagiarism using Similarity Check. Any questions may be addressed to Optica Publishing Group Editorial Ethics subcommittee at eth...@optica.org.
Awareness and proper management of potential conflicts of interest for authors, reviewers and editors is essential to Optica Publishing Group's mission to disseminate and archive optics and photonics knowledge. We define a conflict of interest as arising from any relationship authors, reviewers or editors have which interferes with, or could reasonably be perceived as interfering with, the full and objective presentation, peer review, editorial decision-making, or publication of a manuscript. Conflicts of interest can be financial or non-financial, professional or personal, and can arise in relation to an organization or an individual. Our journals require full disclosure by authors of all conflicts of interest relevant to a submitted manuscript, which is integral to the transparent reporting of research.
Sources of funding for reported research, as well as relevant commercial relationships of authors represent special categories of potential financial conflicts of interest for which specific disclosures are expected by the scientific community and the public. For the purposes of publishing in Optica Publishing Group journals, a Commercial Relationship is defined as any involvement with a for-profit entity which produces, markets, re-sells, or distributes goods or services, which fits within any of the Commercial Relationships Disclosure Codes listed below. Relevant Commercial Relationships are defined as those that (1) relate to the content of the publication for which disclosure is taking place and (2) occurred or extended within a 12-month period preceding the manuscript submission or the review request. We consider financial relationships to create conflicts of interest when individuals have both a financial relationship with a commercial entity and the opportunity to affect published content related to the products or services of that commercial entity. Disclosures should also be made for relevant commercial relationships involving family members.
F (Financial Support) Indicates financial support received from a commercial entity in the form of research funding, grants, research materials or in-kind services (e.g., optical design/manufacturing).
I (Personal Financial Interest) Indicates individual ownership of shares or other investment vehicles in a commercial entity other than through a managed fund (e.g., mutual or retirement fund).
P (Patent) Indicates any involvement with a patent or competing patent, patent application, copyright, or trade secret, whether or not the patent, copyright, etc. is presently licensed or otherwise commercialized.
Acknowledgments. Statistical support was provided by Albert J. Brooks, University of Missouri. Writing assistance was provided by Writing Associates, Inc. Optical Design support was provided by Optics Design, Inc.
We strongly encourage authors to make research data associated with their manuscripts publicly available where possible, and to use best practices when selecting data repositories and citing datasets. See DataCite and Optica Publishing Group Supplementary Materials Guidelines for more information. Information about how to access the data underlying the results presented in a paper should be provided in a Data Availability Statement (DAS) and, where possible, datasets should be cited in the reference list.
Optica Publishing Group has identified four common (sometimes overlapping) situations that authors should use as guidance. These are provided as minimal models, and authors should feel free to include any additional details that may be relevant.
When datasets are included as integral supplementary material in the paper, they must be declared (e.g., as "Dataset 1" following our current supplementary materials policy) and cited in the DAS, and should appear in the references.
If the data generated or analyzed as part of the research are not publicly available, that should be stated. Authors are encouraged to explain why (e.g. the data may be restricted for privacy reasons), and how the data might be obtained or accessed in the future.
Manuscripts returned to the author for revision should be returned to us as quickly as possible. The decision email will include the due date for submission of the revised manuscript. Any revisions received after that date may be assigned a new received date. After revising the paper and writing a detailed reply to the reviewers with a list of changes made to the paper, the corresponding author will log on to Prism to submit a revised manuscript and response. Many editors find a red-lined version of the manuscript to be useful when evaluating the revised paper. Authors can upload a red-lined manuscript in Prism. The editor will then make a final decision or, less often, may choose to send the manuscript back to reviewers. Editors are encouraged to accept or reject revised manuscripts without requesting further mandatory revisions.
Our journals are editorially independent. However, if an editor receives a manuscript that is out of scope but may be suitable for another Optica Publishing Group journal, the editors of both journals will consult and, if they agree, will contact the author to offer to transfer the manuscript. If the author agrees to the transfer, the original receipt date is retained.
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