Earlier this year I co-authored a peer-reviewed research article that was published in MDPI Photonics, an open access journal headquartered in Switzerland. This work was co-authored by Professor Tiku Majumder and two former Williams students. The content of the article was largely technical – it detailed a measurement technique we developed that makes use of a particular crystalline material. This measurement technique has enabled us to study the structure of heavy metal atoms with high precision to test state-of-the-art atomic theory.
After developing this measurement technique, we decided that there was sufficient novelty and detail for it to be publishable and so we looked around for journals with an appropriate scope. We decided on MDPI Photonics primarily because there was an upcoming special issue on precision spectroscopy, which seemed like a perfectly reasonable fit. Our decision was therefore not motivated (in principle) by it being an open access journal, although I also had no objections to this.
John H. Lacy
Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Physics
This story is published in celebration of International Open Access Week 2024. If you want to chat about OA and the library, reach out to your librarian liaison.
To read the complete set of the Open Access 2024 series, visit: https://library.williams.edu/category/openaccess/