Guide for Authors

Introduction

Types of paper

Contributions falling into the following categories will be considered for publication: Progress Reports, Original Research Reports, Reviews, Communications, and Editorial.

Please ensure that you select the appropriate article type from the list of options when making your submission. Authors contributing to special issues should ensure that they select the special issue article type from this list.

A Progress Report is a critically selected overview of latest progress in important research fields (especially in new emerging fields) of energy materials, providing insight, selectivity, criticism, unique opinion, even special vision, rather than a comprehensive article. The paper should have a short and unreferenced abstract. The main text is suggested to be at least 6,000 words in length (excluding abstract, references, tables, figure captions, and Supplementary Information), be divided into reasonable sections with succinct topical headings, and contain 5-10 display items (figures, tables). Illustrations are strongly encouraged. In addition, 4-8 keywords should be given.

A Review is a general overview of a particular field or topic, giving a summary of recent developments, as well as proposing specific viewpoints. The scope of a Review should be broad enough that it is not dominated by the work of a handful of research groups, and particularly not by the authors' own work. The article should have an unreferenced abstract. The main text is suggested to be at least 8,000 words in length (excluding abstract, references, tables, figure captions, and Supplementary Information), be divided into reasonable sections with succinct topical headings, and include 10-20 display items (figures, tables). Illustrations are strongly encouraged. In addition, 4-8 keywords should be given.

A Communication is a short report of outstanding findings in novel study in specific field(s) of energy materials. It also has general implications and appeals to specialists in the other fields. The major findings presented in a Communication or its significant part should not have appeared in any other publication in-print or online. The paper should have a short and unreferenced abstract which contains a brief account of the background and rationale of the work, and a statement of the major conclusions that can be drawn. The main text is suggested to be 2,000-3,000 words in length (excluding abstract, experimental section, references, tables, figure captions, and Supplementary Information) unless its high quality deserves particular consideration, contain 3-5 display items (figures, tables), and have no topical heading. In addition, 3-5 keywords should be given.

An Original Research Report is a full-length article, which provides an in-depth and multi-faceted report about outstanding findings in novel study in specific field(s) of energy materials. It also has general implications and appeals to specialists in other fields. The major findings presented in an Original Research Report or its significant part should not have appeared in any other publication in-print or online. The article should have an unreferenced abstract which contains an account of the background and rationale of the work, and a statement of the major conclusions that can be drawn. The main text is suggested to be 4,000-7,000 words in length (excluding abstract, experimental section, references, tables, figure captions, and Supplementary Information), contain 5-10 display items (figures, tables), and be divided into reasonable sections with succinct topical headings, in which the introduction section should summarize the background (some repetition with the abstract is acceptable) and present the main conclusions or findings of the study. In addition, 4-8 keywords should be given.

Before you begin

Ethics in publishing

Submissions to KeAi journals are automatically screened using iThenticate's CrossCheck within the editorial system to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Details can be found in the following link: https://www.elsevier.com/editors/perk/plagiarism-complaints/plagiarism-detection.

For information on Ethics in Publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication, see https://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics and https://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines.

Conflict of interest

All authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work. The potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants/funding/investment. Please state that 'there are no conflicts to declare' if no conflicts exist. See also https://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.

Submission declaration

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.

Changes to authorship

This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts:

Before the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names, must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform the Journal Editors of any such requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed.

After the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.

Copyright

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement'. Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement.

Permitted third party reuse of open access articles is determined by the author's choice of user license.

Author rights

As an author you (or your employer or institution) have certain rights to reuse your work. For more information on author rights please see https://www.elsevier.com/copyright.

Role of the funding source

You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated. Please see https://www.elsevier.com/funding.

Open access

Every peer-reviewed research article appearing in this journal will be published open access. This means that the article is universally and freely accessible via the internet in perpetuity, in an easily readable format immediately after publication. The APC for this journal is USD 1000, excluding taxes. For all papers submitted before the 31st of December 2022, the APC will be waived making it free to submit to the journal. Permitted third party (re)use is defined by the following Creative Commons user licenses.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND):

Allows users to copy and distribute the Article, provided this is not done for commercial purposes and further does not permit distribution of the Article if it is changed or edited in any way, and provided the user gives appropriate credit (with a link to the formal publication through the relevant DOI), provides a link to the license, and that the licensor is not represented as endorsing the use made of the work. The full details of the license are available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY):

Allows users to copy, to create extracts, abstracts and new works from the Article, to alter and revise the Article and to make commercial use of the Article (including reuse and/or resale of the Article by commercial entities), provided the user gives appropriate credit (with a link to the formal publication through the relevant DOI), provides a link to the license, indicates if changes were made and the licensor is not represented as endorsing the use made of the work. The full details of the license are available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Language and language services

Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission please visit https://webshop.elsevier.com/language-editing/ or our customer support site at http://service.elsevier.com/app/home/supporthub/publishing/ for more information.

Submission

ORCiD ID: Our journal supports the use of ORCiD (https://orcid.org/) ID. Authors are encouraged to provide ORCiD ID at submission.

Submission to this journal proceeds totally online. Use the following guidelines to prepare your article. Via the homepage of this journal (http://www.keaipublishing.com/en/journals/materials-reports-energy/) you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail and via the author's homepage, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail. If you are unable to provide an electronic version, please contact the editorial office prior to submission [e-mail: wyx@mater-rep.com; telephone: +86-23-67398525].

Supplementary Information

All categories of contributions may be accompanied by Supplementary Information (SI). A Supplementary Information (SI) notice should then be given, if you have prepared a Supplementary Information for the paper. Please find detailed requirements of SI in the section on Article Structure below.

Preparation

Peer review

This journal operates a single blind review process. All contributions will be initially assessed by the Editor for suitability for the journal. Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor's decision is final. Editors are not involved in decisions about papers that they have written themselves or have been written by family members or colleagues or which relate to products or services in which the Editor has a conflict of interest. Any such submission is subject to the journal's usual procedures, with peer review handled independently of the relevant editor and their research groups. More information on types of peer review.

1. All manuscripts will be first reviewed by a Managing Editor. Any papers that fail to meet the basic standard of the journal will be desk rejected for reasons like out of scope, ethical issues, high similarities, lack of originality, flaws in research design or methods, etc. Then, the Managing Editor will assign selected paper to an Associate Editor.

2. The assigned Associate Editor will invite multiple reviewers to review this paper.

3. After at least two reviewers give their reviews and comments, the Associate Editor will provide feedbacks to the authors based on reviewers' comments. In case there are conflictive comments from reviewers, the Associate Editor will forward the manuscript to the Editor-in-chief for decision making.

4. When author submits the revised manuscript, the original reviewers will be invited to review the manuscript if necessary. The Associate Editor will make final decision based on reviewers' comments.

5. For submissions from Editor-in-chief, Associate Editors, Guest Editors, other journal board members, and authors who have conflicts of interest with them, we ensure that the paper is handled confidentially by a different journal editor with no conflict of interest. The journal editor who charges this manuscript will make a final decision.

6. For submissions to special issues, Guest Editors are not involved in the peer-review of the manuscripts. Journal Editors will be responsible for the peer review process and make final decision.

Use of wordprocessing software

It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the wordprocessor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the wordprocessor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier). Note that source files of figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. See also the section on Electronic artwork.

To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check' functions of your wordprocessor.

LaTeX

If the LaTeX file is suitable, proofs will be produced without rekeying the text. The article should preferably be written using Elsevier's document class "elsarticle", or alternatively any of the other recognized classes and formats supported in Elsevier's electronic submissions system, for further information see https://www.elsevier.com/authors/policies-and-guidelines/latex-instructions.

The Elsevier "elsarticle" LaTeX style file package (including detailed instructions for LaTeX preparation) can be obtained from the Quickguide: https://www.elsevier.com/latex. It consists of the file: elsarticle.cls, complete user documentation for the class file, bibliographic style files in various styles, and template files for a quick start.

Article structure

This section describes the article structure for this journal.

Subdivision - numbered sections

Divide your article (except for a Communication) into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ...), 1.2, etc. (the abstract is not included in section numbering). Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing: do not just refer to "the text". Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line. Capitalize the first letters of all words in the headings, except coordinating conjunctions, articles and prepositions. Make sure that the headings contain no references and no chemical formulae.

Introduction

State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.

Material and methods

The experimental section of a Communication or an Original Research Report should be right after the main text. It gives necessary information about the materials and methods involved, so as to enable reproduce of the work by a skilled researcher. Methods that have already been published should be summarized, and indicated by a reference. Modifications to existing methods should also be described. In addition, any unusual hazards about the chemicals, procedures or equipment should be clearly identified. Please note that, minor experimental information, e.g. lengthy syntheses process of materials and detailed results of compound characterizations, is recommended to be placed in the Supplementary Information file. Make sure the key information of all materials central to your work is disclosed in the main text or in the Supplementary Information, including commercial and proprietary products, pure materials, and mixtures.

Theory/calculation

A Theory section should extend, not repeat, the background to the article already dealt with in the Introduction and lay the foundation for further work. In contrast, a Calculation section represents a practical development from a theoretical basis.

Results

Results should be clear and concise.

Discussion

This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.

Conclusions

The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.

Appendices

If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on. Similarly for tables and figures: Table A.1; Fig. A.1, etc.

Essential title page information

• Title. Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible. Capitalize the first letters of all words in the title, except coordinating conjunctions, articles and prepositions.

• Author names and affiliations. Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the postal code, city and country name, and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.

• Corresponding author. Use star(s) in superscript immediately after an author's name to indicate the corresponding author(s) (2 corresponding authors at most can be allowed) who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address at the footer of the title page. Contact details must be kept up to date by the corresponding author.

• Present/permanent address. If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, please also give his/her present address at the footer and indicate this by superscript Arabic numerals (immediately after the author's name and at the beginning of the footnote line).

Abstract

A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract is of great importance to a manuscript and thus deserves repeated deliberation. The abstract should be given before the main text (after the author and address lines) and unreferenced (but can cite author and year if indispensable). Neither non-standard nor unusual abbreviations can be allowed in the abstract unless they are vital and are clearly defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.

Graphical abstract

Please prepare a graphical abstract image separately along with your manuscript file. The graphical abstract is mandatory. It summarizes the major contents of the manuscript in a concise, pictorial form. The image should be 531 × 1328 pixels (h × w) or proportionally larger in resolution, and distinguishable at a size of 5 × 13 cm using a regular screen resolution of 96 dpi.

Keywords

Give the keywords of your manuscript in a new line after the abstract. The required number of keywords varies with the category of contribution (see paragraphs above). Please avoid general and plural terms and multiple concepts, as well as abbreviations (except those have been widely recognized and firmly established in the fields of both materials and energy).

Abbreviations

Use abbreviations and acronyms sparingly and consistently. Always ensure that, where an abbreviation or an acronym first appears in the main text of your manuscript, the corresponding complete term or clear definition - except for the most common acronyms such as NMR, IR, SEM, etc. - is also given. If the use of an abbreviation in the abstract is unavoidable, the complete term or clear definition should also be given. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article. In Reviews, if a number of abbreviations and acronyms occur, they can be explained in a glossary as an Appendix at the end of the manuscript.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements express thanks to other contributors (who are not included as the authors) to the work or to the manuscript, and declare all sources of grants and funding to the work. Collate acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise.

Author contributions

For transparency, we require corresponding authors to provide co-author contributions to the manuscript using the relevant CRediT roles. The CRediT taxonomy includes 14 different roles describing each contributor's specific contribution to the scholarly output. The roles are: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Software; Supervision; Validation; Visualization; Roles/Writing - original draft; and Writing - review & editing. Note that not all roles may apply to every manuscript, and authors may have contributed through multiple roles. More details and an example.

Nomenclature and units

Please adhere to the rules and recommendations of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the International Union of Biochemistry (IUB), and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP). The Latin names of biological species and genera should be written in italics. Authors wishing to present a table of nomenclature should do so on the second page of their manuscript.

Math formulae

Present simple formulae in the line of normal text where possible and use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line for small fractional terms, e.g., X/Y. In principle, variables are to be presented in italics. Powers of e are often more conveniently denoted by exp. Number consecutively any equations that have to be displayed separately from the text (if referred to explicitly in the text).

Footnotes

Footnotes should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively throughout the article, using superscript Arabic numbers. In addition, a dedication line can also be included in the footnotes. Many wordprocessors build footnotes into the text, and this feature may be used. Should this not be the case, indicate the position of footnotes in the text and present the footnotes themselves separately at the end of the article. Do not include footnotes in the Reference list.

Table footnotes

Indicate each footnote in a table with a superscript lowercase letter.

Artwork

This section describes the artwork for this journal.

Electronic artwork

General points

• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.

• Save text in illustrations as "graphics" or enclose the font.

• Only use the following fonts in your illustrations: 'Arial' for Roman letters and 'Symbol' for Greek letters.

• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.

• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.

• Provide captions to illustrations separately.

• Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.

• Submit each illustration as a separate file.

A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available.

You are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.

Formats

If your electronic artwork is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) then please supply 'as is' in the native document format.

Regardless of the application used other than Microsoft Office, when your electronic artwork is finalized, please 'Save as' or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):

EPS (or PDF): Vector drawings, embed all used fonts.

TIFF (or JPEG): Color or grayscale photographs (halftones), keep to a minimum of 300 dpi.

TIFF (or JPEG): Bitmapped (pure black & white pixels) line drawings, keep to a minimum of 1000 dpi.

TIFF (or JPEG): Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale), keep to a minimum of 500 dpi.

Please do not:

• Supply files that are optimized for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); these typically have a low number of pixels and limited set of colors;

• Supply files that are too low in resolution;

• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Color artwork

Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in color on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version.

Figure captions

Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

Tables

Provide brief legends for all of your tables, number them consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text, and place any table notes below the table body. Please make sure the tables are in the form of editable text in MS word (not images). The table body should only be subdivided by three horizontal lines (head rule, neck rule and foot rule). Tables that are excessively simple, e.g. with only 1-2 columns and only 1-2 row of entries, should be avoided. Ensure that the data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.

References

This section describes the references for this journal.

Citation in text

Number the references of your manuscript consecutively and make sure their first appearances in the main text (including tables and figure captions) are in ascending sequence. Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Use reference numbers typed between square brackets to form reference symbols both in the main text and in the reference list. Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either "Unpublished results" or "Personal communication". Citation of a reference as "in press" implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

Web references

As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.

Preprint references

Where a preprint has subsequently become available as a peer-reviewed publication, the formal publication should be used as the reference. If there are preprints that are central to your work or that cover crucial developments in the topic, but are not yet formally published, these may be referenced. Preprints should be clearly marked as such, for example by including the word preprint, or the name of the preprint server, as part of the reference. The preprint DOI should also be provided.

References in a special issue

Please ensure that the words 'this issue' are added to any references in the list (and any citations in the text) to other articles in the same Special Issue.

Reference management software

Most Elsevier journals have their reference template available in many of the most popular reference management software products. These include all products that support Citation Style Language styles, such as Mendeley. Using citation plug-ins from these products, authors only need to select the appropriate journal template when preparing their article, after which citations and bibliographies will be automatically formatted in the journal's style. If no template is yet available for this journal, please follow the format of the sample references and citations as shown in this Guide. If you use reference management software, please ensure that you remove all field codes before submitting the electronic manuscript. More information on how to remove field codes from different reference management software.

Reference style

Text: Indicate references by (consecutive) superscript arabic numerals in the order in which they appear in the text. The numerals are to be used outside periods and commas, inside colons and semicolons. For further detail and examples you are referred to the AMA Manual of Style, A Guide for Authors and Editors, Ninth Edition, ISBN 0-683-40206-4, copies of which may be ordered from Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

List: Number the references in the list in the order in which they appear in the text.

Examples:

Reference to a journal publication:

1. Van der Geer J, Hanraads JAJ, Lupton RA. The art of writing a scientific article. J Sci Commun. 2000;163:51–59.

Reference to a book:

2. Strunk W Jr, White EB. The Elements of Style. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Macmillan; 1979.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:

3. Mettam GR, Adams LB. How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In: Jones BS, Smith RZ, eds. Introduction to the Electronic Age. New York, NY: E- Publishing Inc; 1999:281–304.

Journal abbreviations source

Journal names should be abbreviated according to

Index Medicus journal abbreviations: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/archive/20130415/tsd/serials/lji.html,

List of title word abbreviations: http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php,

CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service): http://www.cas.org/sent.html.

Moreover, in order to allow the creation of links to abstracting and indexing services, such as WoS, Scopus, CrossRef and PubMed, please ensure that the information provided in the references is correct, including surnames, journal/book titles, publication years and paginations. The use of the DOI is highly encouraged.

Biographies of author(s)

Colored passport-type photos and short biographies of the first author(s) and corresponding author(s) are mandatory and should be given after the reference list (i.e. at the end of the manuscript file). Each biography (100 words in maximum) must spotlight the author's career to-date and introduce his/her current research interests, in which awards, number of publications, number of patents, etc. should be excluded.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information (SI) is supporting (but not mandatory) file(s) for a manuscript. SI can contain a MS Word document file with additional figures, tables, text of experimental details, etc., and also other files such as 3D molecular models and even movies. But excessively large files are not encouraged to be included in SI, because they may prove difficult for readers to download and access.

The document file of SI will not be edited for style or content, so it should be neat and error free. The author(s) should make sure that the main body of the paper can stand on its own in the absence of the SI. In addition, please note that, the reference(s) in the SI document file must be numbered and listed separately and independently from the manuscript document; figures and tables should appear as they are mentioned in the SI text (not on additional page(s)); SI display items should be referred to as Table S1, Fig.S2, Eq.S3, etc., in the main text.

Submission checklist

The following list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.

Prepare and save your article in an editable file type (e.g. MS word, Latex). All parts of the manuscript (including abstract, main text, figures and captions, tables, references) should be integrated in a single file, and figures should additionally be uploaded as high resolution files.

Ensure that the following items are present:

One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:

• E-mail address

• Full postal address

• Telephone and fax numbers

All necessary files have been uploaded:

• Keywords

• All figure captions

• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)

• A graphical abstract image (may be provided after acceptance of the article)

• Independent supplementary information (optional)

Further considerations

• Manuscript has been "spellchecked" and "grammar-checked"

• References are in the correct format

• All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa

• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web)

• Color figures are clearly marked as being intended for color reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print or to be reproduced in color on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white in print

• If only color on the Web is required, black and white versions of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes

• Colored passport-type photos and short biographies of the first author(s) and corresponding author(s) are given after the reference list.

• Type your manuscript in single-column format with at least 1.5-line spacing. Ensure that Greek letters are in the 'Symbol' font type, and special characters can be clearly recognized. Use sub- and super-scripts, italics, and boldface following the template and scientific customs. The whole paper is written with the American spelling.

For further information, visit our Support Center.

After acceptance

Use of the Digital Object Identifier

The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly 'Articles in press' because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows (example taken from a document in the journal Physics Letters B): doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2010.09.059.

When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they are guaranteed never to change.

Proofs

One set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author or, a link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download the files themselves. Elsevier now provides authors with PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 (or higher) available free from http://get.adobe.com/reader. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs (also given online). The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site: http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/systemreqs.

If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return them to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail, or by post. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately - please let us have all your corrections within 48 hours. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article if no response is received.

Post-publication amendments

Errata and Corrigenda

We will publish a correction of your article if a significant error is discovered after publication. An Erratum will be published if we introduced the error; a Corrigendum if the author introduced the error.

Retractions

Articles may be withdrawn, retracted, removed or replaced after publication if they contain substantial errors that cannot be corrected by publishing an Erratum or a Corrigendum, or if ethical violations come to light after publication.

Author inquiries

Author Inquiries

For inquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission) please visit this journal's homepage. Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, will be provided by the publisher. You can track accepted articles at https://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle. You can also check our Author FAQs (https://www.elsevier.com/authorFAQ) and/or contact Customer Support via http://service.elsevier.com/app/home/supporthub/publishing/.