How to submit

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pdfThe guide for authors and the editorial policies, including the guide for referees, are also available in PDF format.

Online submission

Owing to the volume of manuscripts we receive, we must insist that all submissions (including presubmission enquiries) be made via our online submission system. Using this system, authors can upload manuscript files (text, figures and supplementary information, including video) directly to our office and check on the status of their manuscripts during the review process. In addition, reviewers can access the manuscript (in a highly secure fashion that maintains referee anonymity) over a direct internet link, which speeds the review process. Revisions, including manuscripts submitted after a presubmission inquiry, should be uploaded via the link provided in the editor's decision letter. Please do not submit revisions as new manuscripts.

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Submission policies

Submission to Nature Nanotechnology is taken to imply that there is no significant overlap between the submitted manuscript and any other papers from the same authors under consideration or in press elsewhere. (Abstracts or unrefereed web preprints do not compromise novelty.) The authors must include copies of all related manuscripts with any overlap in authorship that are under consideration or in press elsewhere. If a related manuscript is submitted elsewhere while the manuscript is under consideration at Nature Nanotechnology, a copy of the related manuscript should be sent to the editor.

Submission is also taken to imply that all co-authors have approved the contents of the manuscript and its submission by the corresponding author, and that the corresponding author is authorized to represent all co-authors in pre-publication discussions with the journal. (The corresponding author for editorial purposes need not be the senior author, nor the person to whom correspondence is addressed after publication.) The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done. If an author has subsequently moved, the current address may also be stated. Statements of equal contribution from more than one author are permitted.

If the manuscript includes personal communications, please provide a written statement of permission from any person who is quoted. E-mail permission messages are acceptable.

Follow this link for further information on the review process and how editors make decisions.

A high priority of Nature Nanotechnology is that all papers be accessible to nonspecialists. Manuscripts are subject to substantial editing, in consultation with the authors, to achieve this goal. After acceptance, a copy editor may make further changes so that the text and figures are readable and clear to those outside the field, and so that papers conform to our style. Contributors are sent proofs and are welcome to discuss proposed changes with the editors, but Nature Nanotechnology reserves the right to make the final decision about matters of style and the size of figures.

The editors also reserve the right to reject a paper even after it has been accepted if it becomes apparent that there are serious problems with the scientific content or with violations of our publishing policies.

Additional editorial policies can be found on the Nature journals joint policies page. This page includes information on manuscripts reviewed at other Nature journals, competing financial interests declarations, pre-publication publicity, deposition of data as a condition of publication, availability of data and reagents after publication, human and animal subjects, digital image integrity, biosecurity, refutations, complaints, and correction of mistakes in the journal, duplicate publication, confidentiality and plagiarism.

Nature Nanotechnology uses Oxford English spelling.

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Costs

There is a charge of $500 for the first colour figure and $250 for each additional colour figure. Please note that we are unable offer to publish greyscale in print and colour online. Otherwise, there are no submission fees or page charges.

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Advance online publication

Nature Nanotechnology provides Advance Online Publication (AOP) of research articles, which benefits authors with an earlier publication date and allows our readers access to accepted papers before they appear in print. Note that papers published online are definitive and may be altered only through the publication of a print corrigendum or erratum, so authors should make every effort to ensure that the page proofs are correct. All AOP articles are given a unique digital object identifier (DOI) number, which can be used to cite the paper before print publication. Follow this link for details about advance online publication.

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Cover and other artwork

Authors of accepted papers are encouraged to submit images for consideration as a cover. Cover images are normally linked to a specific paper in that issue, but we may also be able to use other images elsewhere in the journal, such as on the table of contents. Illustrations are selected for their scientific interest and aesthetic appeal. Please send prints or electronic files (rather than slides) in the first instance. Please also include a clear and concise legend explaining the image.

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Preparing the manuscript

Nature Nanotechnologyis read by scientists from diverse backgrounds, including biology, chemistry, engineering, materials science, medicine, physics and other subjects. In addition, many are not native English speakers. Authors should therefore give careful thought to how their findings may be communicated clearly. Technical jargon should be avoided as far as possible and clearly explained where its use is unavoidable. Abbreviations, particularly those that are not standard, should also be kept to a minimum, and should be defined at their first occurrence. The background, rationale and main conclusions of the study should be clearly explained. Titles and abstracts in particular should be written in language that will be readily intelligible to any scientist. We strongly recommend that authors ask a colleague with different expertise to review the manuscript before submission, in order to identify concepts and terminology that may present difficulties to non-specialist readers.

Follow this link for information about the different types of contributions that may be submitted to the journal, along with their length and figure limits. The journal's format requirements are described below.

Manuscripts should be prepared for online submission. Online submissions include a cover letter, a manuscript text file, individual figure files and optional Supplementary Information files.

Cover Letter

Authors should provide a cover letter that includes the affiliation and contact information for the corresponding author. Authors should briefly discuss the work's importance and explain why the work is considered appropriate for the diverse readership of Nature Nanotechnology. Any prior discussions with a Nature Nanotechnology editor about the work described in the manuscript should also be mentioned.

Manuscript text

All textual content is provided in a single file, prepared using either Word or TeX/LaTeX; figures are provided in individual files (see below).

The manuscript text file should include the following parts, in order: a title page with author affiliations and contact information (the corresponding author should be identified with an asterisk); the sections required for each content type (see information for Letters and Articles) then Acknowledgements (optional), Author Contributions (optional), Competing Financial Interests statement, References, Figure Legends, and Tables.

  • Word

    Nature Nanotechnology does not use a manuscript template for Word documents. The manuscript file should be formatted as double-spaced, single-column text without justification. Pages should be numbered using an Arabic numeral in the footer of each page. Standard fonts are recommended and the 'symbols' font should be used for representing Greek characters.

  • TeX/LaTeX

    Authors submitting LaTeX files may use any of the standard class files such as article.cls, revtex.cls or amsart.cls. Non-standard fonts should be avoided; please use the default Computer Modern fonts. For the inclusion of graphics, we recommend graphicx.sty. Please use numerical references only for citations. There is no need to spend time visually formatting the manuscript: Nature Nanotechnology style will be imposed automatically when the paper is prepared for publication. References should be included within the manuscript file itself as our system cannot accept BibTeX bibliography files. Authors who wish to use BibTeX to prepare their references should therefore copy the reference list from the .bbl file that BibTeX generates and paste it into the main manuscript .tex file (and delete the associated \bibliography and \bibliographystyle commands). As a final precaution, authors should ensure that the complete .tex file compiles successfully on their own system with no errors or warnings, before submission.

  • Acknowledgements

    Acknowledgements should be brief, and should not include thanks to anonymous referees and editors, or effusive comments. Grant or contribution numbers may be acknowledged.

  • Author contributions

    Nature Nanotechnology encourages authors to include a statement to specify the individual contributions of each co-author. Please note that, despite this declaration, the corresponding author must certify that all authors have agreed to all the content in the manuscript, including the data as presented.

  • Competing financial interests

    A Competing financial interests statement is required for Letters, Articles, Reviews and Progress articles.

  • References

    References are numbered sequentially as they appear in the text, tables and figure legends. Only one publication is given for each number. Only papers that have been published or accepted by a named publication or recognized preprint server should be in the numbered list; preprints of accepted papers in the reference list should be submitted with the manuscript. Published conference abstracts and numbered patents may be included in the reference list. Grant details and acknowledgments are not permitted as numbered references. Footnotes are not used.

    BibTeX bibliography files cannot be accepted. LaTeX submission must contain all references within the manuscript .tex file itself (see above TeX/LaTeX section for more details).

    Nature Nanotechnology uses standard Nature referencing style. All authors should be included in reference lists unless there are more than five, in which case only the first author should be given, followed by 'et al.'. Authors should be listed last name first, followed by a comma and initials (followed by full stops) of given names. Article titles should be in Roman text, the first word of the title should be capitalized and the title written exactly as it appears in the work cited, ending with a full stop. Book titles should be given in italics and all words in the title should have initial capitals. Journal names are italicized and abbreviated (with full stops) according to common usage. Volume numbers and the subsequent comma appear in bold.

    Titles of cited articles are required for Articles, Letters, Reviews and Progress articles. Example: Eigler, D. M. & Schweizer, E. K. Positioning single atoms with a scanning tunnelling microscope. Nature 344, 524-526 (1990).

    For Commentaries or News & Views, titles of cited articles are not included. Example: Iijima, S. Nature 354, 56-58 (1991).

    For book citations, the publisher and city of publication are required. Example: Jones, R. A. L. Soft Machines: Materials and Life Ch. 3 (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 2004).

  • Figure legends

    Figure legends for Articles or Letters begin with a brief title for the whole figure and continue with a short description of each panel and the symbols used; they should not contain any details of methods. Text for figure legends should be provided in numerical order after the references.

  • Tables

    Please submit tables at the end of your text document (in Word or TeX/LaTeX, as appropriate). Tables that include statistical analysis of data should describe their standards of error analysis and ranges in a table legend.

  • Figures

    Figures should be numbered separately with Arabic numerals in the order of occurrence in the text of the manuscript. One- or two-column format figures are preferred. When appropriate, figures should include error bars. A description of the statistical treatment of error analysis should be included in the figure or scheme legend.

    Figure lettering should be in a clear, sans-serif typeface (for example, Helvetica); if possible, the same typeface in approximately the same font size should be used for all figures in a paper. Use symbol font for Greek letters. All display items should be on a white background, and should avoid excessive boxing, unnecessary colour, spurious decorative effects (such as three-dimensional 'skyscraper' histograms) and highly pixelated computer drawings. The vertical axis of histograms should not be truncated to exaggerate small differences. Labelling must be of sufficient size and contrast to be readable, even after appropriate reduction. The thinnest lines in the final figure should be no smaller than one point wide. Reasonable requests to enlarge figures will be considered, but editors will make the final decision on figure size. Authors will see a proof of figures.

    Figures divided into parts should be labelled with a lower-case bold a, b, and so on, in the same type size as used elsewhere in the figure. Lettering in figures should be in lower-case type, with only the first letter of each label capitalized. Units should have a single space between the number and the unit, and follow SI nomenclature (for example, ms rather than msec) or the nomenclature common to a particular field. Thousands should be separated by commas (1,000). Unusual units or abbreviations should be spelled out in full or defined in the legend. Scale bars should be used rather than magnification factors, with the length of the bar defined in the legend rather than on the bar itself. In legends, please use visual cues rather than verbal explanations, such as "open red triangles".

    Unnecessary figures should be avoided: data presented in small tables or histograms, for instance, can generally be stated briefly in the text instead. Figures should not contain more than one panel unless the parts are logically connected; each panel of a multipart figure should be sized so that the whole figure can be reduced by the same amount and reproduced on the printed page at the smallest size at which essential details are visible.

    When a manuscript is accepted for publication, we will ask for high-resolution figure files, possibly in a different electronic format. This information will be included in the acceptance letter. See below for details of digital image production and submission.

  • Equations

    Equations and mathematical expressions should be provided in the main text of the paper. Equations that are referred to in the text are identified by parenthetical numbers, such as (1), and are referred to in the manuscript as "equation (1)".

  • Supplementary information

    Supplementary information should be submitted with the manuscript and will be sent to referees during peer review. Supplementary information is not copy-edited by Nature Nanotechnology, so authors should ensure that it is clearly and succinctly presented, and that the style and terminology conform with the rest of the paper. The following guidelines detail the creation, citation and submission of supplementary information. Please note that modification of supplementary information after the paper is published requires a formal correction, so authors are encouraged to check their supplementary information carefully before submitting the final version.

    Where there is supplementary information to be included exclusively in the online version of a paper published in Nature Nanotechnology, please follow these guidelines, or publication may be delayed.

    Refer to each piece of supplementary information at least once within the text of the main article (the article that is published in the print issue of the journal), as follows:

    • Designate each item as Supplementary Table, Figure, Video, Audio, Note, Data, Discussion, Equations or Methods. Number Supplementary Tables and Figures as, for example, "Supplementary Table 1". This numbering should be separate from that used in tables and figures appearing in the main printed article. Supplementary Note or Methods should not be numbered; titles for these are optional.
    • Refer to each piece of supplementary material at the appropriate point(s) in the main article. Be sure to include the word "Supplementary" each time one is mentioned. Please do not refer to individual panels of supplementary figures.

    Figure files should be submitted as web-ready files through Nature Nanotechnology online submission system.

    Submit separate electronic files (each including a brief title and legend) in any of these formats:

    • .txt | Plain ASCII text
    • .gif | GIF image
    • .htm | HTML document
    • .doc | MS Word document
    • .jpg | JPEG image
    • .swf | Flash movie
    • .xls | MS Excel spreadsheet
    • .pdf | Adobe Acrobat file
    • .mov | QuickTime movie
    • .ppt | MS Power Point slide
    • .wav | Audio file

    File sizes should be as small as possible, with a maximum size of 3 MB, so that they can be downloaded quickly. All panels of a figure or table (for example, Fig. 1a, b and c) should be combined into one file; please do not send as separate files. Image files should be just large enough to view when the screen resolution is set to 640 x 480 pixels. Audio and video files should use a frame size no larger than 320 x 240 pixels. Remember to include a brief title and legend (preferably incorporated into the image file to appear near the image) as part of every electronic figure submitted, and a title as part of every table.

    Further queries about submission and preparation of supplementary information should be directed to naturenano@nature.com.

Figures for peer review

Figures should be uploaded upon submission via our online submission system, in one of our preferred formats, if possible. Please use the smallest file size that provides sufficient resolution for their content to be clearly legible, preferably less than 1 MB, so that referees do not have to download extremely large files.

High resolution images are not required at initial submission. When a paper is accepted, the editors will request high-resolution files suitable for publication.

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Preparing figures for publication

It is important to supply production quality figures when requested by the editor. Failure to do so, or to adhere to the following guidelines, can significantly delay publication of your work.

When possible, we prefer to use original digital figures to ensure the highest quality reproduction in the journal. For optimal results, prepare figures at actual size for the printed journal. When creating and submitting digital files, please follow the guidelines below. Always send a set of high-quality, glossy printouts of your figures along with your accepted manuscript. This enables us to check the quality of the images we produce to ensure that they match your own, and provides a backup in the event that we cannot use your digital files.

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to publish any figures or illustrations that are protected by copyright, including figures published elsewhere and pictures taken by professional photographers. The journal cannot publish images downloaded from the internet without appropriate permission.

  • Formats

    Line art, graphs, charts and schematics

    All line art, graphs, charts and schematics should be supplied in vector format, such as Encapsulated PostScript (.EPS), Adobe Illustrator (.AI), or Portable Document Format (.PDF), and should be saved or exported as such directly from the application in which they were made. This allows us to restyle to our journal house style.

    We prefer to work with Adobe Illustrator but can accept Word and PowerPoint files.

    They should not be flattened, compressed, converted or saved as bitmaps, jpegs or other non-vector file types. If line art figures cannot be supplied as vector files they should be supplied at 1200 DPI and as close to print size as possible.

    Photographic and bitmapped images

    All photographic and bitmapped images should be supplied in TIFF format at a minimum of 300 DPI and as close to print size as possible. For final print size please use our column widths as a guide. A single column width measures at 88 mm and a double column width measures at 170 mm. In practice this means that the absolute width of single column figures should be no less than 1040 pixels wide and double column figures should be no less than 2080 pixels wide (excluding peripheral white space).

    We can accept Word and PowerPoint files but please supply any placed images as separate tiffs, prepared as above. If preparing in Adobe Photoshop please type all text on separate text layers so that we can retype in our own house style. If this is not possible please supply two sets of figures - one with labelling for our reference, and one without labelling. Please make sure any scale bars or important markers are left on both sets.

    Where possible please supply colour photographic images in CMYK colour mode as colour detail may be lost converting from RGB to CMYK.

    Please do not scan laser printouts of figures and send them to us as digital files. The dot pattern on a laser print often creates a moiré pattern when scanned.

    Figures that do not meet these standards will not reproduce well and may delay publication until we receive high-resolution images or high-quality printouts. We cannot be held responsible for assuming the cost of corrected reprints should poor quality images need to be used.

  • Chemical structure display items

    Schemes and figures that contain chemical structures should be produced using ChemDraw or a similar program. All chemical compounds must be assigned a bold, Arabic numeral in the order in which the compounds are presented in the manuscript text. Schemes and figures containing chemical structures should be submitted in a size appropriate for direct incorporation into the printed journal. Authors using ChemDraw should use the following preferences and submit the files at 100% as EPS files.

    • Drawing settings: chain angle, 120° bond spacing, 18% of width; fixed length, 14.4 pt; bold width, 2.0 pt; line width, 0.6 pt; margin width 1.6 pt; hash spacing 2.5 pt.
    • Text settings: font, Arial or Helvetica; size, 10 pt.
    • Preferences: units, points; tolerances, 3 pixel.

  • How to send files

    To support compatibility with your digital files, it is important to send them to us with the final version of your manuscript. Figures may be sent on Zip disk, Jaz disk or CD, or by FTP (see below).

    FTP site: Using any type of FTP software, you can place files on our FTP site. Name your files with the corresponding author's name, figure number and letter, and file format (for example, Dr. Smith's figure 3a in TIFF format: smith3a.tiff). Do not use slashes (/,\) or hyphens (-) when naming your file. Please compress your files before uploading.

    • site address: ftp.nature.com
    • user name: naturenano
    • password: nano
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Appendix

An appendix to this document contains information about: bioinformatics; new structures; statistical guidelines; characterization of chemical and biomolecular materials; nomenclature and abbreviations.

pdfThe guide for authors and the editorial policies, including the guide for referees, are also available in PDF format.

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