Journal rankings · indicator year 2019
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Subfield ranking · 2019
Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics journal rankings 2019
97 ranked journals · Subfield in Physics and Astronomy
Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics has 97 ranked journals in 2019. The median journal has an OJR of 0.75, below the world average of 1.00, unchanged on 2018; Q1 starts at OJR 1.21. The top three are Reviews of Modern Physics, Reports on Progress in Physics, and Advances in Optics and Photonics.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2019. Journal access status and listed APC: source snapshot September 23, 2026.
Journals whose main subfield sits in this category and that published at least 30 citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) in 2016–2018, the window the 2019 score is computed on.
The OpenJournalRank Indicator (OJR) is a free, publicly available metric of a journal’s field-normalized citation impact, computed from open OpenAlex citation data. It compares citations to a journal’s papers from the previous three years with the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and values can be compared across fields. It is computed with the NCI3 method.
The middle OJR among ranked journals in this category: half score higher, half lower. 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type.
The dot is this category, the solid tick is the median of all ranked journals and the dashed line is the world average.
Share of ranked journals in this category that are fully open access, so every paper is free to read. Hybrid journals, which sell subscriptions and open single papers for a fee, are not counted.
Median list price of the article processing charge, in US dollars, among ranked journals in this category that list a price above zero. Journals with a listed APC of $0 and journals with no known price are left out of this median. The At a glance table below gives a second median that includes the $0 prices.
Subfields of Physics and Astronomy (8)
97 ranked journals
Filters
Rank is the position by OJR within the list on screen; 1 is the highest. | OJR is field-normalized 3-year citation impact: 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so values compare across fields. The badge is the journal’s quartile in this list. | Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is not field-normalized, so compare it only between journals of the same field. ▲ or ▼ is the change from 2018. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2016–2018, the window the 2019 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2016–2018 papers that are free to read in any open-access form. The green OA tag next to a title marks a fully open-access journal. | List price of the article processing charge in US dollars. “$0 listed” means the listed price is zero; a dash means no price is listed. | The line is the journal’s OJR from 2010 to 2019. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Reviews of Modern PhysicsAmerican Physical Society · United States | 20.55Q1 | 50.00 7.85 up from 2018 | 127 | 88% | — | ||
2Reports on Progress in PhysicsIOP Publishing · United Kingdom | 7.22Q1 | 18.62 1.70 up from 2018 | 268 | 87% | $4,680 | ||
3Advances in Optics and PhotonicsOptica Publishing Group · United States | 6.65Q1 | 17.58 1.03 up from 2018 | 44 | 24% | — | ||
4Nature PhotonicsNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 6.39Q1 | 16.19 0.38 up from 2018 | 735 | 42% | $12,690 | ||
5Light Science & ApplicationsOASpringer Nature · United Kingdom | 4.88Q1 | 14.46 0.37 up from 2018 | 340 | 100% | $4,190 | ||
6Nature PhysicsNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 4.59Q1 | 9.73 0.55 down from 2018 | 1,075 | 56% | $12,690 | ||
7Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Computational Molecular ScienceWiley · United States | 4.44Q1 | 14.82 4.61 up from 2018 | 129 | 34% | $5,230 | ||
8Physical Review XOAAmerican Physical Society · United States | 4.28Q1 | 10.99 0.51 up from 2018 | 717 | 100% | $4,200 | ||
9OpticaOAOptica Publishing Group · United States | 3.92Q1 | 11.34 1.06 up from 2018 | 744 | 100% | $3,208 | ||
10Physical Review LettersAmerican Physical Society · United States | 3.57Q1 | 9.38 0.29 down from 2018 | 7,865 | 88% | $3,750 | ||
11International Reviews in Physical ChemistryTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 3.09Q1 | 5.17 4.43 down from 2018 | 43 | 25% | — | ||
12Progress in Surface ScienceElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 2.78Q1 | 6.67 0.89 down from 2018 | 41 | 38% | $4,130 | ||
13SciPost PhysicsOASciPost.org · Netherlands | 2.48Q1 | 6.14 0.08 up from 2018 | 191 | 100% | — | ||
14Photonics ResearchOptica Publishing Group · United States | 2.09Q1 | 6.69 1.06 up from 2018 | 433 | 16% | — | ||
15Communications PhysicsOANature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 2.02Q1 | 5.10 5.10 up from 2018 | 102 | 100% | $3,990 | ||
16Advances in Physics XOATaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.92Q1 | 4.67 0.17 up from 2018 | 114 | 100% | $1,895 | ||
17APL PhotonicsOAAIP Publishing · United States | 1.91Q1 | 6.09 1.00 up from 2018 | 249 | 100% | $2,750 | ||
18Comptes Rendus PhysiqueOAAcadémie des sciences · France | 1.73Q1 | 4.20 1.35 up from 2018 | 179 | 73% | — | ||
19Adaptive Optics Systems VIPublisher not listed | 1.61Q1 | 0.54 0.54 up from 2018 | 218 | — | — | ||
20Physical Review AppliedAmerican Physical Society · United States | 1.59Q1 | 4.71 0.09 down from 2018 | 1,336 | 59% | — | ||
21New Journal of PhysicsOAIOP Publishing · United Kingdom | 1.59Q1 | 3.91 0.02 down from 2018 | 2,065 | 100% | $2,610 | ||
22Journal of Chemical Theory and ComputationAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 1.52Q1 | 5.23 0.14 down from 2018 | 1,714 | 52% | $4,500 | ||
23Atomic Data and Nuclear Data TablesElsevier BV · United States | 1.33Q1 | 2.64 1.33 down from 2018 | 78 | 35% | $3,030 | ||
24Frontiers in PhysicsOAFrontiers Media · Switzerland | 1.24Q1 | 3.23 0.84 up from 2018 | 258 | 100% | $3,077 | ||
25The European Physical Journal PlusSpringer Science+Business Media · Germany | 1.21Q1 | 3.72 0.81 up from 2018 | 1,541 | 23% | $3,890 | ||
26Structural DynamicsOAAIP Publishing · United States | 1.14Q2 | 3.61 0.47 up from 2018 | 148 | 100% | $2,200 | ||
27Physical Review AAmerican Physical Society · United States | 1.06Q2 | 3.22 0.12 up from 2018 | 8,084 | 77% | $2,675 | ||
28Journal of OpticsIOP Publishing · United Kingdom | 1.04Q2 | 2.67 0.36 down from 2018 | 1,197 | 57% | $3,325 | ||
29Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes VIIPublisher not listed | 1.03Q2 | 0.36no 2018 value | 177 | — | — | — | |
30Annalen der PhysikWiley · Germany | 1.01Q2 | 2.74 0.05 down from 2018 | 448 | 45% | $3,840 | ||
31Journal of Computational ChemistryWiley · United States | 1.00Q2 | 2.94 0.03 up from 2018 | 824 | 34% | $4,520 | ||
32Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative TransferElsevier BV · Netherlands | 0.99Q2 | 3.51 0.17 up from 2018 | 1,201 | 31% | $2,870 | ||
33Physical review. B./Physical review. BAmerican Physical Society · United States | 0.99Q2 | 3.95 0.01 down from 2018 | 16,016 | 81% | — | ||
34Journal of Physics A Mathematical and TheoreticalInstitute of Physics · United Kingdom | 0.97Q2 | 2.06 0.14 up from 2018 | 1,866 | 93% | $3,325 | ||
35Annals of PhysicsElsevier BV · United States | 0.96Q2 | 2.18 0.07 down from 2018 | 778 | 68% | $3,160 | ||
36Frontiers of PhysicsHigher Education Press · China | 0.90Q2 | 2.57 0.18 down from 2018 | 333 | 24% | $3,890 | ||
37The Journal of Chemical PhysicsAmerican Institute of Physics · United States | 0.90Q2 | 3.18 0.02 up from 2018 | 6,372 | 51% | $3,500 | ||
38Science China Physics Mechanics and AstronomySpringer Science+Business Media · China | 0.88Q2 | 3.03 0.18 up from 2018 | 483 | 36% | $3,590 | ||
39The Journal of Physical Chemistry AAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 0.87Q2 | 2.76 0.01 up from 2018 | 3,215 | 24% | — | ||
40Physics Letters AElsevier BV | 0.87Q2 | 2.31 0.33 up from 2018 | 1,995 | 27% | $2,150 | ||
41Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern PhysicsElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 0.87Q2 | 1.88 0.94 up from 2018 | 135 | 39% | $2,700 | ||
42Europhysics Letters (EPL)Institute of Physics · France | 0.83Q2 | 2.21 0.22 up from 2018 | 1,832 | 75% | $1,895 | ||
43Journal of the Optical Society of America BOptica Publishing Group · United States | 0.82Q2 | 2.63 0.28 up from 2018 | 1,259 | 25% | — | ||
44Color and Imaging ConferenceUnited States | 0.81Q2 | 0.41 0.16 up from 2018 | 169 | 12% | — | ||
45Applied Physics BSpringer Science+Business Media · Germany | 0.77Q2 | 2.18 0.28 up from 2018 | 855 | 19% | $4,090 | ||
46Journal of the Optical Society of America AOptica Publishing Group · United States | 0.77Q2 | 2.27 0.25 up from 2018 | 898 | 24% | — | ||
47Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical PhysicsIOP Publishing · United Kingdom | 0.76Q2 | 1.76 0.16 down from 2018 | 1,233 | 67% | $3,325 | ||
48Annual Review of Condensed Matter PhysicsAnnual Reviews · United States | 0.75Q2 | 15.46 2.65 up from 2018 | 77 | 95% | — | ||
48Advances in Optical and Mechanical Technologies for Telescopes and Instrumentation IIIPublisher not listed | 0.75Q2 | 0.27no 2018 value | 187 | — | — | — | |
50BiointerphasesAmerican Institute of Physics · Germany | 0.75Q3 | 2.37 0.03 up from 2018 | 289 | 39% | — |
Subfields of Physics and Astronomy, with Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics highlighted.
- Astronomy and Astrophysics116
- Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics97
- Nuclear and High Energy Physics69
- Statistical and Nonlinear Physics45
- Radiation30
- Condensed Matter Physics9
- Instrumentation1
- Acoustics and Ultrasonics0
Journals
Citations made in 2019. Corpus-wide, 83.4% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
27 additional Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2016–2018, at least 80% of them with a subfield, and a positive world-average expectation. Ranks are within the whole category; filters hide rows without re-ranking. OJR excludes self-citations.
At a glance
Indicator year: 2019. Publication window: 2016–2018. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 97
- Window papers (baseline)
- 113,962 -2.9% from indicator year 2016
- Median OJR
- 0.75 -4.9% from indicator year 2016
- Rising journals (2025)
- 5
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2016–2018 in all journals of the world-average baseline, including non-core journals, counted by each paper’s own subfield. They are not the papers of the ranked journals alone.
| Measure | Year series | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked journals | 57 | 64 | 62 | 65 | 65 | 66 | 68 | 70 | 70 | 73 | 72 | 71 | 78 | 81 | 85 | 87 | 89 | 91 | 92 | 97 | 105 | 103 | 103 | 108 | 107 | 105 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 84,695 | 86,753 | 86,412 | 89,035 | 91,151 | 95,706 | 100,546 | 106,715 | 110,735 | 112,436 | 112,382 | 112,245 | 113,539 | 114,815 | 116,212 | 117,514 | 117,344 | 117,182 | 115,527 | 113,962 | 112,377 | 111,323 | 110,326 | 106,860 | 103,126 | 100,852 | |
| Median OJR | 0.710 | 0.60 | 0.59 | 0.642 | 0.640 | 0.77 | 0.807 | 0.783 | 0.89 | 0.86 | 0.84 | 0.95 | 0.83 | 0.778 | 0.82 | 0.813 | 0.79 | 0.80 | 0.76 | 0.75 | 0.706 | 0.67 | 0.662 | 0.68 | 0.657 | 0.70 |
How to read these rankings
- OJR, the OpenJournalRank Indicator
- A field-normalized 3-year citation impact, computed from OpenAlex with the NCI3 method. It divides the citations a journal’s papers received by the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and 2.00 means twice as many citations as expected. Because it is normalized, it can be compared across fields. Read the methodology
- Quartiles
- Q1 to Q4 split the ranked journals of the list you are viewing into four equal groups by OJR. A journal’s quartile depends on the list: the same journal can be Q1 in its subfield and Q2 among all journals.
- Impact factor (2-year)
- Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is easy to compare with familiar impact factors but is not field-normalized, so compare it only within a field. It is not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. Why it differs from the Journal Impact Factor
- Rank ranges
- Each rank in the latest year carries a likely range from 1,000 resamples of the journal’s papers. Where two journals’ ranges overlap, the data cannot tell them apart, so treat neighbouring ranks as ties.