How to format your references using the Applied Physics Letters citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Applied Physics Letters. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Download the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

¹ E. Breukink, “Cell biology. Lethal traffic jam,” Science 325(5941), 684–685 (2009).

A journal article with 2 authors

¹ D.K. Keefer, and M.C. Larsen, “Geology. Assessing landslide hazards,” Science 316(5828), 1136–1138 (2007).

A journal article with 3 authors

¹ L.R. Baugh, J. Demodena, and P.W. Sternberg, “RNA Pol II accumulates at promoters of growth genes during developmental arrest,” Science 324(5923), 92–94 (2009).

A journal article with 4 or more authors

¹ D.-H. Cho, T. Nakamura, J. Fang, P. Cieplak, A. Godzik, Z. Gu, and S.A. Lipton, “S-nitrosylation of Drp1 mediates beta-amyloid-related mitochondrial fission and neuronal injury,” Science 324(5923), 102–105 (2009).

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

¹ P. Golding, Next Generation Wireless Applications (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2005).

An edited book

¹ E. César, M. Alexander, A. Streit, J.L. Träff, C. Cérin, A. Knüpfer, D. Kranzlmüller, and S. Jha, editors , Euro-Par 2008 Workshops - Parallel Processing: VHPC 2008, UNICORE 2008, HPPC 2008, SGS 2008, PROPER 2008, ROIA 2008, and DPA 2008, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, August 25-26, 2008, Revised Selected Papers (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2009).

A chapter in an edited book

¹ T. Kleemans, E. Segers, and L. Verhoeven, “Towards a Theoretical Framework on Individual Differences in Numerical Abilities: Role of Home Numeracy Experiences,” in Early Childhood Mathematics Skill Development in the Home Environment, edited by B. Blevins-Knabe and A.M.B. Austin, (Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2016), pp. 71–86.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for Applied Physics Letters.

Blog post

¹ E. Andrew, “Genes Could Be Influencing Our Weight By Shaping Which Microbes Inhabit Our Gut,” IFLScience, (2014).

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

¹ Government Accountability Office, Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites: Cost Increases Trigger Review and Place Program’s Direction on Hold (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2006).

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

¹ A. Weygandt, Extension of Elementary Functions to Zeon Algebras, Doctoral dissertation, Southern Illinois University, 2017.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

¹ G. Vecsey, “Fans in Green and Blue Give Life to Drab Stadium,” New York Times, B10 (2010).

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

This sentence cites one reference ¹.
This sentence cites two references ^1,2.
This sentence cites four references ^1–4.

About the journal

Full journal title	Applied Physics Letters
Abbreviation	Appl. Phys. Lett.
ISSN (print)	0003-6951
ISSN (online)	1077-3118
Scope	Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)