Journal rankings · indicator year 2021
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Subfield ranking · 2021
Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics journal rankings 2021
103 ranked journals · Subfield in Physics and Astronomy
Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics has 103 ranked journals in 2021. The median journal has an OJR of 0.67, below the world average of 1.00, down 0.04 on 2020; Q1 starts at OJR 1.17. The top three are Reviews of Modern Physics, Nature Photonics, and Advances in Optics and Photonics.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2021. 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 2018–2020, the window the 2021 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)
103 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 2020. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2018–2020, the window the 2021 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2018–2020 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 2012 to 2021. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Reviews of Modern PhysicsAmerican Physical Society · United States | 21.03Q1 | 54.80 5.28 down from 2020 | 114 | 85% | — | ||
2Nature PhotonicsNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 6.96Q1 | 25.53 4.95 up from 2020 | 618 | 51% | $12,690 | ||
3Advances in Optics and PhotonicsOptica Publishing Group · United States | 6.54Q1 | 19.79 3.39 up from 2020 | 54 | 46% | — | ||
4Reports on Progress in PhysicsIOP Publishing · United Kingdom | 6.10Q1 | 15.75 2.24 down from 2020 | 150 | 60% | $4,680 | ||
5Light Science & ApplicationsOASpringer Nature · United Kingdom | 5.08Q1 | 19.62 3.28 up from 2020 | 441 | 100% | $4,190 | ||
6Nature PhysicsNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 4.34Q1 | 11.91 0.60 up from 2020 | 1,006 | 53% | $12,690 | ||
7Physical Review XOAAmerican Physical Society · United States | 4.02Q1 | 12.03 1.69 down from 2020 | 812 | 100% | $4,200 | ||
8Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Computational Molecular ScienceWiley · United States | 3.40Q1 | 11.43 0.71 down from 2020 | 125 | 53% | $5,230 | ||
9OpticaOAOptica Publishing Group · United States | 3.19Q1 | 10.49 0.68 down from 2020 | 764 | 100% | $3,208 | ||
10Physical Review LettersAmerican Physical Society · United States | 3.09Q1 | 9.63 0.22 down from 2020 | 8,304 | 88% | $3,750 | ||
11Progress in Quantum ElectronicsElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 2.70Q1 | 8.84 4.04 down from 2020 | 38 | 37% | $4,090 | ||
12SciPost PhysicsOASciPost.org · Netherlands | 2.34Q1 | 7.09 0.08 up from 2020 | 463 | 100% | — | ||
13Advances in Physics XOATaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 2.21Q1 | 6.64 0.33 down from 2020 | 104 | 100% | $1,895 | ||
14Communications PhysicsOANature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 2.03Q1 | 6.34 0.07 up from 2020 | 486 | 100% | $3,990 | ||
15International Reviews in Physical ChemistryTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.92Q1 | 6.86 0.78 up from 2020 | 40 | 38% | — | ||
16Photonics ResearchOptica Publishing Group · United States | 1.91Q1 | 7.07 0.06 down from 2020 | 717 | 20% | — | ||
17Adaptive Optics Systems VIPublisher not listed | 1.88Q1 | —no 2020 value | 217 | — | — | ||
18APL PhotonicsOAAIP Publishing · United States | 1.86Q1 | 6.71 0.37 up from 2020 | 391 | 100% | $2,750 | ||
19Nature Reviews PhysicsNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 1.53Q1 | 13.50 0.44 up from 2020 | 244 | 41% | — | ||
20Journal of Chemical Theory and ComputationAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 1.51Q1 | 6.34 0.03 up from 2020 | 1,760 | 54% | $4,500 | ||
21Physical Review ResearchOAAmerican Physical Society · United States | 1.49Q1 | 4.62 0.36 down from 2020 | 2,381 | 100% | $2,625 | ||
22Physical Review AppliedAmerican Physical Society · United States | 1.42Q1 | 5.08 0.07 down from 2020 | 2,588 | 65% | — | ||
23Comptes Rendus PhysiqueOAAcadémie des sciences · France | 1.32Q1 | 1.78 2.27 down from 2020 | 153 | 100% | — | ||
24New Journal of PhysicsOAIOP Publishing · United Kingdom | 1.24Q1 | 3.71 0.03 up from 2020 | 1,986 | 100% | $2,610 | ||
25The European Physical Journal PlusSpringer Science+Business Media · Germany | 1.19Q1 | 4.05 0.19 up from 2020 | 2,127 | 34% | $3,890 | ||
26Frontiers in PhysicsOAFrontiers Media · Switzerland | 1.17Q1 | 4.21 0.08 down from 2020 | 947 | 100% | $3,077 | ||
27Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes VIIPublisher not listed | 1.12Q2 | —no 2020 value | 177 | — | — | ||
28Science China Physics Mechanics and AstronomySpringer Science+Business Media · China | 1.09Q2 | 4.20 0.40 up from 2020 | 511 | 52% | $3,590 | ||
29Frontiers of PhysicsHigher Education Press · China | 1.03Q2 | 4.89 1.48 up from 2020 | 274 | 48% | $3,890 | ||
30Annals of PhysicsElsevier BV · United States | 1.01Q2 | 2.91 0.15 up from 2020 | 697 | 72% | $3,160 | ||
31Journal of Physics PhotonicsOAIOP Publishing · United Kingdom | 1.00Q2 | 3.38 0.60 up from 2020 | 144 | 100% | $2,700 | ||
32The Journal of Chemical PhysicsAmerican Institute of Physics · United States | 0.96Q2 | 4.27 0.71 up from 2020 | 6,253 | 56% | $3,500 | ||
33Structural DynamicsOAAIP Publishing · United States | 0.94Q2 | 3.15 0.22 up from 2020 | 124 | 100% | $2,200 | ||
34Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern PhysicsElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 0.94Q2 | 2.18 0.40 up from 2020 | 122 | — | $2,700 | ||
35Journal of Computational ChemistryWiley · United States | 0.94Q2 | 3.95 0.74 up from 2020 | 723 | 29% | $4,520 | ||
36Physical Review AAmerican Physical Society · United States | 0.93Q2 | 3.25 0.09 down from 2020 | 7,491 | 76% | $2,675 | ||
37Annual Review of Condensed Matter PhysicsAnnual Reviews · United States | 0.91Q2 | 20.97 5.28 up from 2020 | 64 | 84% | — | ||
38Physical review. B./Physical review. BAmerican Physical Society · United States | 0.91Q2 | 4.16 0.13 down from 2020 | 15,175 | 77% | — | ||
39Atomic Data and Nuclear Data TablesElsevier BV · United States | 0.88Q2 | 1.95 0.86 down from 2020 | 56 | 21% | $3,030 | ||
39Quantum ReportsOAMultidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute · Switzerland | 0.88Q2 | 2.50 0.18 up from 2020 | 71 | 100% | $1,689 | ||
41Advances in Optical and Mechanical Technologies for Telescopes and Instrumentation IIIPublisher not listed | 0.80Q2 | —no 2020 value | 187 | — | — | ||
42Journal of Physics A Mathematical and TheoreticalInstitute of Physics · United Kingdom | 0.77Q2 | 2.21 0.12 up from 2020 | 1,601 | 90% | $3,325 | ||
43Communications in Theoretical PhysicsInstitute of Physics · China | 0.76Q2 | 2.97 1.12 up from 2020 | 606 | 68% | — | ||
44Color and Imaging ConferenceUnited States | 0.76Q2 | 0.42 0.05 down from 2020 | 188 | 48% | — | ||
45Annalen der PhysikWiley · Germany | 0.75Q2 | 2.80 0.18 up from 2020 | 505 | 37% | $3,840 | ||
46The Journal of Physical Chemistry AAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 0.74Q2 | 2.94 0.08 up from 2020 | 3,188 | 29% | — | ||
47AtomsOAMultidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute · Switzerland | 0.73Q2 | 2.54 0.56 up from 2020 | 264 | 100% | $1,810 | ||
48Physics Letters AElsevier BV | 0.73Q2 | 2.31 0.08 down from 2020 | 1,983 | 32% | $2,150 | ||
49Physics OpenOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 0.72Q2 | 1.95 1.39 up from 2020 | 40 | 100% | $1,700 | ||
50Journal of OpticsIOP Publishing · United Kingdom | 0.69Q2 | 2.20 0.54 down from 2020 | 873 | 57% | $3,325 |
Subfields of Physics and Astronomy, with Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics highlighted.
- Astronomy and Astrophysics117
- Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics103
- Nuclear and High Energy Physics76
- Statistical and Nonlinear Physics45
- Radiation29
- Condensed Matter Physics8
- Instrumentation1
- Acoustics and Ultrasonics0
Journals
Citations made in 2021. Corpus-wide, 87.7% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
25 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 2018–2020, 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: 2021. Publication window: 2018–2020. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 103
- Window papers (baseline)
- 111,323 -3.6% from indicator year 2018
- Median OJR
- 0.67 -11.6% from indicator year 2018
- Rising journals (2025)
- 5
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2018–2020 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.