Welcome to rrl solar – more photovoltaics and energy research in pss (RRL)
Authors: Hildebrandt Stefan 
Published: September 2013

Dear readers,

Since its launch in 2007 pss (Rapid Research Letters) has published increasing numbers of articles related to solar cells, photovoltaics (PV) and other energy‐related topics. This has happened in parallel with a strong rise in international research activities as well as unprecedented levels of participants and exhibitors at global PV conferences such as EUPVSEC and SiliconPV in Europe, PVSC in the US, PV Asia Pacific and many other meetings, some of them more research‐oriented, others mainly focused on advancement of the technology. Obviously this fast pace has strongly raised the need for quality‐proven publication of new results which is perfectly being matched by our policy of priority handling, strict peer review and rapid appearance of accepted articles. Despite of tough competition and certain eruptions in the industry in some regions, intense basic and applied research activities are ongoing and being further expanded in countries such as Germany, Australia, the USA and others.

The interest of the community in our journal was initially fuelled by two invited Focus issues published in 2008 [1] which received high attention among readers with an issue‐specific impact factor of 4.3 after two years. This success has then perpetuated by more quality manuscript submissions so today we can claim that the international PV community has found a steady home in pss (RRL). Interestingly, a breakdown of the materials systems covered in the contributions from the last seven years (see diagram) shows that about half of the articles deal with various forms of silicon (from crystalline to a‐Si:H etc.). While this may seem a mature and established technology at first glance, obviously immense efforts are being made to further advance and better characterize materials quality and solar cell performance. One frequent subject is Al2O3 surface pas‐sivation (see, e.g. [2]). With more than 15% of all published papers, silicon is followed by organic and hybrid PV approaches, which have undoubtedly seen fast progress recently and appear even more promising for future, partly entirely new applications. Other materials systems, especially compound semiconductors, with their main branches chalcogenides (CIGS, II–VI etc.), III–V materials, and dye‐sensitized solar cells (DSSC) based on TiO2, occupy further slots of about 6% to 10% each while other oxide semiconductors (e.g. ZnO) still seem to be less well represented (we plan to prepare a corresponding topical issue soon). Further important or not materials‐specific aspects concern e.g. photon management, solar concentrators and PV systems, plasmonics, theory and the like (e.g. [3, 4]).

Based on this successful and meanwhile self‐sustaining development, earlier this year we have launched rrl solar as a dedicated regular section in pss (RRL) concentrating articles dealing with photovoltaic materials, solar cells and other energy‐related topics within a highly visible focus in each issue. The current edition is a prominent example with 6 rrl solar Letters. We are thus providing more space in the journal both for individual Rapid Research Letters (since 2013 their length has been increased to max. 3000 words and 4 figures/tables, typically 4 pages) as well as regarding the number of possible contributions. The community can profit from our very fast publication times (in 2012, on average 17 days from submission to first editorial decision and online publication of the final article within 6 working days). Moreover, articles from the PV field are being soon and often referred to with a “solar impact” of about 3.5, and a very respectable average citation rate of currently 8.5 for all articles published since 2007.

Materials and topics covered in pss (RRL) articles on photovoltaics and solar cells (2007–2013).

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Materials and topics covered in pss (RRL) articles on photovoltaics and solar cells (2007–2013).

In addition to Letters, pss (RRL) has also been opened for selected Review@RRL contri‐butions. Latest highlights have been topical reviews on III–V nanowire PV [5] (as part of our Focus issue on Semiconductor Nanowires forthcoming in October) and luminescence inline characterization of silicon [6].

To strengthen our already close ties with the com‐munity, earlier this year Andres Cuevas of ANU Canberra and Uwe Rau of FZ Jülich have become Editorial Advisory Board members of pss, and we are glad to see independently reviewed regular contributions from both groups in this issue [7, 8]. More Board members representing various subfields of PV research will be appointed soon, and we will likewise be happy to expand our coverage to further new materials systems as well as other energy‐related research – such as thermoelectrics, solar fuels, battery materials, just to name a few examples.

Looking forward to rrl solar shining bright in our journal,

Sincerely yours,

Stefan Hildebrandt

Editor‐in‐Chief