Journal rankings · indicator year 2023
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Subfield ranking · 2023
Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics journal rankings 2023
108 ranked journals · Subfield in Physics and Astronomy
Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics has 108 ranked journals in 2023. The median journal has an OJR of 0.68, below the world average of 1.00, up 0.02 on 2022; Q1 starts at OJR 1.24. The top three are Reviews of Modern Physics, Advances in Optics and Photonics, and eLight.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2023. 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 2020–2022, the window the 2023 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)
108 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 2022. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2020–2022, the window the 2023 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2020–2022 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 2014 to 2023. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Reviews of Modern PhysicsAmerican Physical Society · United States | 16.37Q1 | 51.72 1.19 up from 2022 | 100 | 56% | — | ||
2Advances in Optics and PhotonicsOptica Publishing Group · United States | 8.95Q1 | 32.54 5.24 up from 2022 | 43 | 46% | — | ||
3eLightOASpringer Nature · Singapore | 7.84Q1 | 28.03 15.83 down from 2022 | 32 | 100% | $0 listed | ||
4Nature PhotonicsNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 6.64Q1 | 22.06 0.89 down from 2022 | 516 | 41% | $12,690 | ||
5Reports on Progress in PhysicsIOP Publishing · United Kingdom | 5.15Q1 | 16.69 1.57 up from 2022 | 120 | 88% | $4,680 | ||
6PhotoniXOASpringer Nature · Singapore | 5.07Q1 | 17.94 1.04 down from 2022 | 73 | 100% | $2,239 | ||
7Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Computational Molecular ScienceWiley · United States | 4.93Q1 | 17.05 5.95 up from 2022 | 160 | 63% | $5,230 | ||
8Light Science & ApplicationsOASpringer Nature · United Kingdom | 4.92Q1 | 17.44 0.51 down from 2022 | 757 | 100% | $4,190 | ||
9Ultrafast ScienceOAAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science · China | 4.61Q1 | 14.10 0.60 up from 2022 | 30 | 100% | — | ||
10Nature PhysicsNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 3.83Q1 | 9.59 1.48 down from 2022 | 1,026 | 40% | $12,690 | ||
11Physical Review XOAAmerican Physical Society · United States | 3.11Q1 | 9.59 0.63 down from 2022 | 772 | 100% | $4,200 | ||
12Progress in Quantum ElectronicsElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 2.94Q1 | 8.91 1.94 down from 2022 | 55 | 57% | $4,090 | ||
13OpticaOAOptica Publishing Group · United States | 2.77Q1 | 9.36 0.52 down from 2022 | 697 | 100% | $3,208 | ||
14Physical Review LettersAmerican Physical Society · United States | 2.67Q1 | 7.90 1.11 down from 2022 | 7,305 | 57% | $3,750 | ||
15Ukrainian Journal of Physical OpticsOAUkraine | 2.23Q1 | 10.82 6.45 up from 2022 | 77 | 100% | — | ||
16Light Advanced ManufacturingOAChina | 2.13Q1 | 8.15 1.03 up from 2022 | 94 | 100% | — | ||
17AAPPS bulletinOASpringer Nature · South Korea | 1.95Q1 | 5.05 0.95 down from 2022 | 66 | 100% | $2,190 | ||
18Photonics ResearchOptica Publishing Group · United States | 1.94Q1 | 7.25 0.08 down from 2022 | 940 | 15% | — | ||
19AVS Quantum ScienceUnited States | 1.91Q1 | 4.67 2.85 down from 2022 | 121 | 73% | — | ||
20Nature Reviews PhysicsNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 1.86Q1 | 18.33 3.73 up from 2022 | 378 | 30% | — | ||
21Advances in Physics XOATaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.86Q1 | 5.67 0.03 up from 2022 | 117 | 100% | $1,895 | ||
22SciPost PhysicsOASciPost.org · Netherlands | 1.79Q1 | 4.71 0.73 down from 2022 | 788 | 100% | — | ||
23Communications PhysicsOANature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 1.77Q1 | 5.60 0.26 up from 2022 | 826 | 100% | $3,990 | ||
24APL PhotonicsOAAIP Publishing · United States | 1.67Q1 | 5.96 0.11 down from 2022 | 425 | 100% | $2,750 | ||
25Journal of Chemical Theory and ComputationAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 1.31Q1 | 5.72 0.34 up from 2022 | 1,802 | 53% | $4,500 | ||
26Science China Physics Mechanics and AstronomySpringer Science+Business Media · China | 1.31Q1 | 4.50 0.28 down from 2022 | 523 | 34% | $3,590 | ||
27Physical Review ResearchOAAmerican Physical Society · United States | 1.24Q1 | 3.66 0.59 down from 2022 | 4,465 | 100% | $2,625 | ||
28Frontiers of PhysicsHigher Education Press · China | 1.22Q2 | 4.79 0.91 down from 2022 | 274 | 15% | $3,890 | ||
29Physical Review AppliedAmerican Physical Society · United States | 1.15Q2 | 4.08 0.54 down from 2022 | 2,762 | 34% | — | ||
30Journal of Physics PhotonicsOAIOP Publishing · United Kingdom | 1.12Q2 | 4.45 0.49 up from 2022 | 227 | 100% | $2,700 | ||
31Journal of Computational ChemistryWiley · United States | 1.04Q2 | 3.64 0.42 up from 2022 | 614 | 56% | $4,520 | ||
32Atomic Data and Nuclear Data TablesElsevier BV · United States | 0.97Q2 | 2.68 0.75 up from 2022 | 66 | 33% | $3,030 | ||
33The Journal of Chemical PhysicsAmerican Institute of Physics · United States | 0.96Q2 | 3.02 1.40 down from 2022 | 5,756 | 54% | $3,500 | ||
34Annals of PhysicsElsevier BV · United States | 0.93Q2 | 2.54 0.02 down from 2022 | 679 | 38% | $3,160 | ||
35The European Physical Journal PlusSpringer Science+Business Media · Germany | 0.93Q2 | 2.93 0.47 down from 2022 | 3,496 | 28% | $3,890 | ||
36SciPost Physics CoreOASciPost.org · Netherlands | 0.92Q2 | 2.38 1.18 down from 2022 | 116 | 100% | — | ||
37Frontiers in PhysicsOAFrontiers Media · Switzerland | 0.90Q2 | 2.51 0.86 down from 2022 | 2,734 | 100% | $3,077 | ||
38New Journal of PhysicsOAIOP Publishing · United Kingdom | 0.89Q2 | 2.58 0.57 down from 2022 | 1,890 | 100% | $2,610 | ||
39Color and Imaging ConferenceUnited States | 0.86Q2 | 0.46 0.09 up from 2022 | 153 | 100% | — | ||
40Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern PhysicsElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 0.81Q2 | —no 2022 value | 42 | — | $2,700 | ||
41Communications in Theoretical PhysicsInstitute of Physics · China | 0.81Q2 | 2.31 0.65 down from 2022 | 628 | 94% | — | ||
42Natural SciencesOAWiley · Germany | 0.77Q2 | 2.97 0.33 down from 2022 | 60 | 100% | $3,430 | ||
43Physics OpenOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 0.76Q2 | 1.83 1.05 down from 2022 | 78 | 100% | $1,700 | ||
44Physical Review AAmerican Physical Society · United States | 0.76Q2 | 2.58 0.41 down from 2022 | 7,052 | 30% | $2,675 | ||
45Physical review. B./Physical review. BAmerican Physical Society · United States | 0.75Q2 | 3.32 0.41 down from 2022 | 14,952 | 35% | — | ||
46The Journal of Physical Chemistry AAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 0.74Q2 | 2.87 0.25 down from 2022 | 2,961 | 36% | — | ||
47LiquidsOASwitzerland | 0.74Q2 | 2.97 1.85 up from 2022 | 39 | 100% | $1,207 | ||
48Electronic StructureIOP Publishing · United Kingdom | 0.73Q2 | 2.90 0.95 up from 2022 | 132 | 93% | $3,325 | ||
49Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative TransferElsevier BV · Netherlands | 0.73Q2 | 2.87 0.21 up from 2022 | 1,193 | 44% | $2,870 | ||
50Structural DynamicsOAAIP Publishing · United States | 0.71Q2 | 2.00 0.59 down from 2022 | 123 | 100% | $2,200 |
Subfields of Physics and Astronomy, with Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics highlighted.
- Astronomy and Astrophysics110
- Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics108
- Nuclear and High Energy Physics69
- Statistical and Nonlinear Physics47
- Radiation26
- Condensed Matter Physics8
- Acoustics and Ultrasonics0
- Instrumentation0
Journals
Citations made in 2023. Corpus-wide, 88.9% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
16 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 2020–2022, 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: 2023. Publication window: 2020–2022. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 108
- Window papers (baseline)
- 106,860 -4.9% from indicator year 2020
- Median OJR
- 0.68 -3.8% from indicator year 2020
- Rising journals (2025)
- 5
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2020–2022 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.