91AV

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.

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