Guide for Authors

Revised October 31

, 2023 www.nature.com/lsa

Guide for Authors

ARTICLE TYPES 1

PREPARATION OF ARTICLES 2

HOW TO SUBMIT 7

POST-ACCEPTANCE 7

PUBLICATION CHARGES 7

EDITORIAL POLICIES 8

FURTHER INFORMATION 12

ARTICLE TYPES

Article Description

Abstract

Word Limit

References

Article

The article denotes a relatively complete, comprehensive report

of original research. An article usually has a fairly complex

narrative that is based on multiple techniques and/or

approaches. Article must contain the following components in

the order stated as body section.

• Introduction

• Results

• Discussion

• Materials and methods

Please see section of “PREPARATION OF ARTICLES” for

further details.

Unstructured

abstract;

max word limit:

250

6 000 words

excluding

abstract,

references,

figures and

tables

Max of 50.

Please use as

current as

possible.

Editorial

The editors invite editorials to discuss a topical issue or a paper

published in the journal and set the problems addressed by the

paper in the wider context of the field. These are usually

commissioned, but unsolicited editorial submissions are

considered for publication.

No abstract

required

1 000 words

excluding

references

Max of 15

News & Views

News and Views are by prior arrangement only, although

prospective authors are welcome to make proposals. They may

be linked to articles in LSA or they may focus on papers of

exceptional significance that are published elsewhere. News

and Views are not peer-reviewed.

Unstructured

abstract;

max word limit:

500-1500 words

Max of 12

Perspective

Perspective paper denotes a scholarly discussion of one recent

major breakthrough or summary of a few new progresses to

cohesively point out the emerging opportunities in light

sciences, technologies and applications.

Perspective papers may be opinionated but should remain

balanced; therefore the editor may recommend an influential

researcher in the field to co-author a perspective article and to

stimulate discussion and consideration of new approaches to

investigation and understanding of a commonly interested

Unstructured

abstract;

max word limit:

250

2 000 words

excluding

abstract,

references,

figures and

tables

Max of 20,

not

including

reference to

the original

article.

Revised October 31

, 2023 www.nature.com/lsa

research topic.

Research Highlight

Research-highlight denotes an article to convey a summary of

achievements of selected new research papers. It explains a

complex, important piece of research in a way that makes it

enticingly comprehensible to all readers. Research highlight is

not peer-reviewed.

Several stringent guidelines should be followed as below:

● The headline must consist of a brief generic subject

identifier followed by a short description. No more than 5

words in total.

● Considering non-expert readers, some concepts and

technical terms should be simplified.

● No more than three authors are allowed for author

information.

Neither abstract, references, figures nor tables are required.

No abstract

required

180 words

No reference

required

Review Article

Review Articles cover a focused area on the advancing edge of

optics and photonics and provide a balanced view of current

research that can be understood by researchers outside that

specialty.

Review Articles do not require 'Materials and methods' or

'Results and discussion' sections but can be structured using

short topical headings.

Review Articles will be subject to the established review

process.

Unstructured

abstract;

max word limit:

250

6 000 words

excluding

abstract,

references,

figures and

tables

Max of 100

Word limit

Word limits are provided for guidance only. The Editors will consider submissions that exceed the recommended limit,

subject to feedback received during peer review.

PREPARATION OF ARTICLES

Cover letter

Each manuscript must be accompanied by a cover letter,

including statements that:

• All authors agree with the submission;

• The work has not been published or submitted for

publication elsewhere, either completely or in part,

or in another form or language;

• No materials are reproduced from another source

(if there is material in your manuscript which has

been reproduced from another source, please

change this item to 'there are some materials which

are reproduced from other sources. We have gotten

authorizations from the copyright holders to use

them, and have included these authorizations with

this submission');

• Conflict of Interest Statement

Organization of manuscript

We do not request manuscripts to be formatted in LSA’s

style for submissions, as long as the study is described in

a fashion that is suitable for editorial assessment and

peer review.

Please use a common word-processing package (such as

Microsoft Word) for the manuscript text. Supplementary

Information should be supplied as a separate file in

word or PDF format, preferably in Word format, while

not combined in the manuscript file.

Authors should follow the guidelines outlined below,

which also must be followed when submitting files for

revisions.

Manuscript should be provided in a single file, figures

 
3 
Revised October 31
st
, 2023                            www.nature.com/lsa 
and tables should be embedded into the file at proper 
position. If the manuscript is accepted in principle, 
Microsoft Word file is required. 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 different article types) then References, 
Acknowledgements (optional), Author Contributions, 
Conflict of Interest statement. Footnotes to the text are 
not allowed and any such material should be 
incorporated into the text as parenthetical matter. 
Manuscript should include continuous line number. 
(i)  Title page 
The title page should include a succinct title (less than 
200 characters); the full names of all authors including 
their given names; the affiliations (including city, state, 
country and zip code) of all authors; the official email 
addresses of all authors, and the full contact details of 
the corresponding author (including telephone number). 
(ii)  Abstract 
A brief abstract (maximum 250 words) should state the 
purpose, basic procedures, main findings and principal 
conclusions of the study. The abstract should not contain 
abbreviations or references and should not be structured. 
(iii)  Introduction 
The Introduction should summarize the rationale for the 
study and outline pertinent background material. The 
Introduction should not contain either results or 
conclusions. 
(iv)  Results 
The Results should be presented in a logical sequence in 
the text, tables and figures; repetitive presentation of the 
same data in different forms should be avoided. The 
Results should not include material appropriate to the 
Discussion. 
(v)  Discussion 
The Discussion should not reiterate Results, but rather 
should consider them in relation to any hypotheses 
advanced in the Introduction. This may include an 
evaluation of methodology and the relationship of new 
information to the existing body of knowledge in that 
field. 
(vi)  Materials and methods 
Materials and Methods should be described in sufficient 
detail to allow the experimental work to be reproduced 
in another laboratory, and to leave the reader in no 
doubt as to how the results were derived. 
Availability of data, materials and methods: An 
inherent principle of publication is that others should be 
able to replicate and build upon the authors' published 
claims. A condition of publication is that authors are 
required to make materials, data, code, and associated 
protocols promptly available to readers without undue 
qualifications. 
Submission of a manuscript to Light: Science & 
Applications implies that materials described in the 
manuscript, including all relevant raw data, will be 
freely available to any scientist wishing to use them for 
non-commercial purposes, without breaching participant 
confidentiality. 
Data availability statements: Data availability 
statements provide a statement about where data 
supporting the results reported in a published article can 
be found - including, where applicable, hyperlinks to 
publicly archived datasets analysed or generated during 
the study. For all original research articles, we require 
the provision of data availability statements, examples 
and details can be seen on our data policy web page. The 
statement should be placed at the end of the Methods 
section (titled, ‘Data availability’), after the code 
availability statement if one is present. For further 
guidance, please refer to the Data availability and data 
citations policy information and Frequently Asked 
Questions (FAQs).  
Light: Science & Applications strongly encourages that all 
datasets on which the conclusions of the paper rely 
should be available to readers. We encourage authors to 
ensure that their datasets are either deposited in publicly 
available repositories (where available and appropriate) 
or presented in the main manuscript or additional 
supporting files whenever possible. Please see Springer 
Nature’s information on recommended repositories. 
Data should be submitted to discipline-specific, 
community-recognised repositories where possible. In 
cases where a suitable discipline-specific resource does 
not exist, data may be submitted to a generalist data 
repository, including any generalist data repositories 
provided by universities, funders or institutions for their 
affiliated researchers. 
Where a widely established research community 
expectation for data archiving in public repositories 
exists, submission to a community-endorsed, public 
repository is mandatory. Persistent identifiers (such as 

Revised October 31

, 2023 www.nature.com/lsa

DOIs and accession numbers) for relevant datasets must

be provided in the paper.

(vii ) Acknowledgements

Authors should acknowledge the source of financial

grants and other funding, and declare any industrial

links or affiliations. The contribution of colleagues or

institutions should also be acknowledged. Personal

thanks and thanks to anonymous reviewers should not

be included.

(viii)Conflict of interest

A conflict of interest statement must be included for each

contributing author. Please see the Conflict of Interest

guidelines in the Editorial Policies section for more

information and for guidelines on what constitutes a

conflict of interest.

(ix) References

References: All necessary references should be included

in order to credit previous work directly relevant to the

article. References should follow the Nature style

available in most reference management software. In the

text they should appear as superscript numbers starting

at 1 and at the end of the paper they should be listed

(double-spaced) in numerical order corresponding to the

order of citation in the text. Where a reference is to

appear next to a number in the text, for example,

following an equation, chemical formula or biological

acronym, citations should be written as (ref. X) and not

as superscript. Example: “detectable levels of

endogenous Bcl-2 (ref. 3), as confirmed by western blot.”

All authors should be listed for papers with up to five

authors; for papers with more than five authors, the first

only should be listed, followed by et al. Abbreviations

for titles of medical periodicals should conform to those

used in the latest edition of Index Medicus. The first and

last page numbers for each reference should be

provided. Abstracts must be identified as such. Papers in

press and preprints hosted on a recognized server may

be included in the list of references.

Examples:

Journal article, up to five authors:

Belkaid, Y. & Rouse, B. T. Natural regulatory T cells in

infectious disease. Nat. Immunol. 6, 353–360 (2005).

Journal article, e-pub ahead of print:

Bonin, M. et al. F-ara-A pharmacokinetics during

reduced-intensity conditioning therapy with fludarabine

and busulfan. Bone Marrow Transplant.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/sj.bmt.1705565 (2007).

Journal article, in press:

Gallardo, R. L., Juneja, H. S. & Gardner, F. H. Normal

human marrow stromal cells induce clonal growth of

human malignant T-lymphoblasts. Int. J. Cell Cloning (in

the press).

Complete book:

Atkinson, K. et al. (eds) Clinical Bone Marrow and Blood

Stem Cell Transplantation (Cambridge Univ. Press,

2004).

Chapter in book:

Harley, N. H. & Vivian, L. in Mechanisms of Disease 4th

edn, Vol. 2 (eds Sodeman, W. A. & Smith, A.) Ch. 3

(Saunders, 1974).

Published conference proceedings:

Smith, Y. (ed.) Proc. 1st National Conference on Porous

Sieves (Butterworth-Heinemann, London, 1997).

Paper in published conference proceedings:

Jones, X. Zeolites and synthetic mechanisms. In Proc. 1st

National Conference on Porous Sieves (ed. Smith, Y.) 16–

27 (ButterworthHeinemann, London, 1997).

Abstract:

Feig, S. A. et al. Bone marrow transplantation for

neuroblastoma. Exp. Hematol. 13, abstr. 102 (1985).

Preprint:

Starrfelt, J. & Liow, L.H. How many dinosaur species

were there? Fossil bias and true richness estimated using

a Poisson sampling model (TRiPS). Preprint at

http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/12/04/025940

(2015).

Research dataset:

Hao, Z., AghaKouchak, A., Nakhjiri, N. & Farahmand,

A. Global Integrated Drought Monitoring and Prediction

System (GIDMaPS) Data sets. figshare.

http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.853801 (2014).

Dissertation/Thesis

Young, W. R. Effects of Different Tree Species on Soil

Properties in Central New York. MSc thesis, Cornell

Univ. (1981).

Scientific report

Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Internal

Displacement: Global Overview of Trends and

Developments in 2006. 6-8 (IDMC, 2007)

Patent

Pagedas, A. C. Reusable laparoscopic retrieval

mechanism. US patent 6,387,102 (2002).

Revised October 31

, 2023 www.nature.com/lsa

Materials online

Manaster, J. Sloth squeak. Scientific American Blog

Network http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/psi-

vid/2014/04/09/sloth-squeak (2014).

Artwork Guidance

General Figure Guidelines

Use distinct colours with comparable visibility and

consider colour-blind individuals by avoiding the use of

red and green for contrast. Recoloring primary data,

such as fluorescence images, to colour-safe combinations

such as green and magenta, turquoise and red, yellow

and blue or other accessible colour palettes is strongly

encouraged. Use of the rainbow colour scale should be

avoided. Use solid colour for filling objects and avoid

hatch patterns. Avoid background shading. Figures

divided into parts should be labelled with a lower-case,

boldface 'a', 'b', etc. in the top left-hand corner. Labelling

of axes, keys and so on should be in 'sentence case' (first

word capitalized only) with no full stop. Units must

have a space between the number and the unit, and

follow the nomenclature common to your field. Spaces,

not commas should be used to separate thousands.

Unusual units or abbreviations should be spelled out in

full, or defined in the legend.

Final Figure Submission Guidelines

Should your manuscript be accepted, for manuscript

production, figures should be prepared and submitted

following guidelines below.

● Each figure should be saved in a separate file.

Figures including multiple parts (e.g. Fig.1a, 1b, 1c)

should be saved in a single file (e.g. Figure1a-c). The

figure number should be placed above each figure.

Figure legends should be inserted in the article’s

text file.

● Figures should be supplied in their original vector

format to ensure they are completely independent

of resolution and all elements in the figures are

editable. All figures need to be drawn and

generated directly from a vector drawing software

(Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, CAD, etc).

● Following figure formats are acceptable:

• AI

• EPS

• PS

• PDF

● For vector graphics with imported photos or images

produced by optical instrument or camera, please

make sure that each individual photo/image

imported into vector tools and the final vector

graphic meet the following requirements:

• Resolution: 300+ dpi

• Width: 2000+ pixels

● Raster graphics (JPG, JPEG, PNG, etc) should be

completely redrawn using vector tools rather than

opening them with a vector software and saving

them as a vector format.

● The size of each figure file need to be within 100 MB

● Use the same typeface (Arial, Helvetica or Times

New Roman) for all figures. Use symbol font for

Greek letters.

● Display items 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.

● Images may be rotated or scaled, but this must be

the same in the x and y dimensions

● Contrast and brightness can be adjusted, but this

must be uniform across the entire image, and must

not result in the loss of any feature, band or spot.

The background should still be visible

● If lanes are removed, and once separate parts of an

image are joined together, a black, white or grey line

should indicate clearly where the image was cut

● If black borders are drawn around the image, the

lines should correspond to all edges where the

image was cut

● Protein molecular weights or DNA fragment sizes

should be indicated for all figure panels showing

gel electrophoresis

● Graphs, Histograms and Statistics

• Error bars must be described in the figure

legend

• Axes on graphs should extend to zero, except

for log axes

• Statistical analyses (including error bars and p

values) should only be shown for

independently repeated experiments, and must

not be shown for replicates of a single

experiment

• The number of times an experiment was

repeated (N) must be stated in the legend

(x) Tables

Tables should be labelled sequentially as Table 1, Table

2, etc. Each table should be numbered, titled and cited in

Revised October 31

, 2023 www.nature.com/lsa

the text. Reference to table footnotes should be made by

using Arabic numerals. Tables should not duplicate the

content of the text. They should consist of at least two

columns, and each column should have a heading.

Authors should ensure that the data in the tables are

consistent with those cited in the relevant places in the

text, totals add up correctly, and percentages have been

calculated correctly.

If a table or figure has been published before, the authors

must obtain written permission to reproduce the

material in both print and electronic formats from the

also applies to quotes, illustrations and other materials

taken from previously published works not in the public

domain. The original source should be cited in the figure

caption or table footnote. Please note the citations in the

article should be in the below order: Text > Tables >

Figure legends > boxes. e.g. the text end with citation 36,

then citation in Tables should start with 37, likewise for

figures.

House Style

As the electronic submission will provide the basic

material for typesetting, it is important that papers are

prepared in the general editorial style of the journal

1. Do not make rules thinner than 1 pt (0.36 mm)

2. Use a coarse hatching pattern rather than

shading for tints in graphs

3. Color should be distinct when being used as an

identifying tool

4. Use SI units throughout

5. Spaces, not commas should be used to separate

thousands

6. Abbreviations should be preceded by the words

for which they stand in the first instance of use

and should not be used for terms used fewer

than 4 times

7. Text should be double spacing with a wide

margin

8. Use a common word-processing package (such

as Microsoft Word) for the text

9. If you submit raw data, this can be done in Excel,

or tab/comma delimited format

10. At first mention of a manufacturer the town,

(state if USA) and country should be provided

Supplementary information

Supplementary information is peer-reviewed material

directly relevant to the conclusions of an article that

cannot be included in the printed version owing to space

or format constraints. It is posted on the journal's

website and linked to the article when the article is

published and may consist of data files, graphics, movies

or extensive tables.

The article must be complete and self-explanatory

without the supplementary information. Supplementary

information enhances a reader’s understanding of the

manuscript but is not essential to that understanding.

Supplementary information must be supplied via eJP,

the electronic manuscript submission and tracking

system for peer review. On acceptance the final version

of the peer reviewed supplementary information should

be submitted in its FINAL form with the accepted

manuscript. It can neither be altered, nor added to, after

the paper has been accepted for publication. It is not

subedited and will appear online exactly as originally

submitted.

If supplementary files are movies, animators, or other

separate non-text files, author should submit a text file to

explain them (alternatively include a legend list as a

separate supplementary file or combined them into text

supplementary file).

Authors should include the text 'Supplementary

information accompanies the manuscript on the Light:

Science & Applications website

(http://www.nature.com/lsa)' at the end of the article

and before the references.

Accepted supplementary file format is as follows,

• Quick Time files (.mov)

• Graphical image files (.gif)

• HTML files (.html)

• MPEG movie files (.mpg)

• JPEG image files (.jpg)

• Sound files (.wav)

• Acrobat files (.pdf)

• MS Word documents (.doc)

• Postscript files (.ps)

• MS Excel spreadsheet documents (.xls)

• Plain ASCII text (.txt)

• TeX or LaTeX (.tex) files

File sizes must be as small as possible, so that they can

be downloaded quickly. Images should not exceed 640 x

480 pixels (approximately 23 x 17 cm at 72 dpi), and we

would recommend 480 x 360 pixels as the maximum

frame size for movies. We also recommend a frame rate

of 15 frames per second. If applicable to the presentation

of the supplementary information, use a 256-color

Revised October 31

, 2023 www.nature.com/lsa

palette. Please consider the use of lower specification for

all of these points if the supplementary information can

still be represented clearly. Our recommended

maximum data rate is 150 KB/s.

HOW TO SUBMIT

Online Submission

We only accept manuscript submission via our online

manuscript submission system. Before submitting a

manuscript, authors are encouraged to consult both our

Editorial Policies and the Submission Instructions for our

online manuscript submission system. If you have not

already done so, please register for an account with our

online manuscript system. You will be able to monitor

the status of your manuscript online throughout the

editorial process.

Submission of Revisions

Authors submitting a revised manuscript after review

are asked to include the following:

(1) A rebuttal letter, indicating point-by-point how

you have addressed the comments raised by the

reviewers. If you disagree with any of the points raised,

please provide adequate justification in your letter.

(2) A marked-up version of the manuscript that

highlights changes made in response to the reviewers'

comments in order to aid the Editors and reviewers.

POST-ACCEPTANCE

Publication

Publishing Open Access will mean the paper is freely

accessible online immediately upon publication. By

paying this charge authors are permitted to post the

final, published PDF of their article on a website,

institutional repository or other free public server,

immediately on publication.

Open access articles are published under a CC BY license

(Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

License). The CC BY license is preferred by many

research funding bodies. It allows for maximum

dissemination and re-use of open access materials: users

are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit) and

remix (adapt) the contribution including for commercial

purposes, providing they attribute the contribution in

the manner specified by the author or licensor (read the

full legal code).

Under Creative Commons licenses, authors retain

funders require papers to be published under a specific

license and so should check the funder mandate to

ensure compliance.

Proofs

The corresponding author will receive an e-mail

containing a URL linking to the proofing site. Proof

corrections must be returned within 48 hours of receipt.

Failure to do so may result in delayed publication.

Extensive changes cannot be made at this stage.

Self-Archiving

Authors are encouraged to submit the final version of

the accepted, peer-reviewed manuscript to their funding

body's archive for public release immediately upon

publication and to deposit the final version on their

institution’s repository. Authors should cite the

publication reference and DOI number on any deposited

version, and provide a link from it to the published

article on the nature.com website.

This policy complements the policies of the US National

Institutes of Health, the Wellcome Trust and other

research funding bodies around the world. Springer

Nature recognises the efforts of funding bodies to

increase access of the research they fund, and strongly

encourages authors to participate in such efforts.

PUBLICATION CHARGES

In order to publish in Light: Science & Applications,

authors of accepted articles are required to pay an article

processing charge (APC). The APC is determined at the

date of acceptance. Check the APCs and Springer

Nature’s related services and policies at:

https://www.nature.com/lsa/open-access#apc.

Revised October 31

, 2023 www.nature.com/lsa

EDITORIAL POLICIES

Submission to the Light: Science & Applications implies

that all authors have seen and approved the full

manuscript.

To avoid unnecessary delays in the review process,

please consider the following policies carefully before

you submit your manuscript.

Authorship

Requirements for all categories of articles largely

conform to the standard practices of life sciences

journals. A manuscript will be considered for

publication with the understanding that:

1. all named authors have agreed to its submission

2. it is not currently being considered for

publication by another journal

3. if the paper is accepted, it will not subsequently

be published in the same or similar form in any

language without the consent of publisher

Each author must have contributed sufficiently to the

intellectual content of the submission. The

corresponding author should list all authors and their

contributions to the work. Any changes to the author list

after submission, such as a change in the order of the

authors, or the deletion or addition of authors, must be

approved by a signed letter from every author. The

corresponding author must confirm that he or she has

had full access to the data in the study and final

responsibility for the decision to submit for publication.

To qualify as a contributing author, one must meet all of

the following criteria:

1. Conceived and/or designed the work that led

to the submission, acquired data, and/or

played an important role in interpreting the

results

2. Drafted or revised the manuscript

3. Approved the final version

Other individuals who made direct contributions to the

work but do not meet all of the above criteria may be

recognized in the Acknowledgements section of the

manuscript.

Professional writers and industry employees can be

contributors. Their roles, affiliations, and potential

conflicts of interest should be included in the author list

or noted in the Acknowledgments and/or Contributors

section concurrent with their contribution to the work

submitted. Signed statements from any medical writers

or editors declaring that they have given permission to

be named as an author, as a contributor, or in the

Acknowledgments section is also required. Failure to

acknowledge these contributors can be considered

inappropriate, which conflicts with the editorial policy of

the Light: Science & Applications.

Plagiarism and fabrication

Plagiarism is when an author attempts to pass off

someone else's work as his or her own. Duplicate

publication, sometimes called self-plagiarism, occurs

when an author reuses substantial parts of his or her

own published work without providing the appropriate

references. Plagiarism without dishonest intent is

relatively frequent, for example, when an author reuses

parts of an introduction from an earlier paper. Because

of some confusion as to the appropriate use of other

authors' writing, we offer the following guideline in

addition to the normal principles regarding plagiarism:

if more than 5 consecutive words are taken verbatim

from the text of another publication (including the

authors’ own work), this fact should be indicated by the

use of inverted commas, as well as citation of the

original source. It is not appropriate to make trivial

changes to the wording instead. This rule can be relaxed

slightly for descriptions of methodology from the

authors’ own papers, or for common phrases. If

plagiarism is found, the journal will contact the author

and, in some cases, the author's institute and funding

agencies. The paper containing the plagiarism will be

marked on each page of the PDF, and depending on the

extent of the plagiarism, the paper may be formally

retracted. CrossCheck is a multi-publisher initiative to

screen published and submitted content for originality.

Light: Science & Applications uses CrossCheck to detect

instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted

manuscripts. To find out more about CrossCheck visit

http://www.crossref.org/crosscheck.html

Duplicate publication

Material submitted to the journal must be original and

not published or submitted for publication elsewhere in

any language. This policy applies to material submitted

elsewhere while the contribution to Light: Science &

Revised October 31

, 2023 www.nature.com/lsa

Applications is under consideration.

Authors submitting a manuscript should notify the

editor(s) if part of their contribution has appeared or will

appear elsewhere, or if any related material is under

consideration or in press elsewhere.

If a submission contains a figure that is published

elsewhere or that is copyrighted, the author must

provide documentation that the previous publisher or

be re-published. The editors consider all material in

good faith, and assume that the journal has full

permission to publish every part of the submitted

material, including illustrations.

Permissions

If a table or figure has been published before, the authors

must obtain written permission to reproduce the

material in electronic format from the copyright owner

and submit it with the manuscript. This follows for

illustrations and other materials taken from previously

published works not in the public domain. The original

source should be cited in the figure caption or table

footnote. Permission to reproduce material can usually

be obtained through the Copyright Clearance Center.

Clinical Trials

As defined by the International Committee of Medical

Journal Editors (ICMJE), a clinical trial is any research

project that prospectively assigns human subjects to

intervention and comparison groups to study the cause-

and effect relationship between a medical intervention

and a health outcome. A medical intervention is any

intervention used to modify a health outcome and

includes but is not limited to drugs, surgical procedures,

devices, behavioural treatments, and process-of-care

changes. A trial must have at least one prospectively

assigned concurrent control or comparison group in

order to trigger the requirement for registration.

Nonrandomised trials are not exempt from the

registration requirement if they meet the above criteria.

When reporting experiments on human subjects, please

indicate whether the procedures were in accordance

with the ethical standards of the responsible committee

on human experimentation (institutional or regional) or

with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 (as revised in

1983). Include Institutional Review Board or Animal

Care and Use Committee approvals.

All clinical trials must be registered in a public registry

prior to submission. The journal follows the trials

registration policy of the ICMJE (www.icmje.org) and

considers only trials that have been appropriately

registered before submission, regardless of when the

trial closed to enrolment. Acceptable registries must

meet the following ICMJE requirements:

• be publicly available, searchable, and open to all

prospective registrants

• have a validation mechanism for registration data

• be managed by a not-for-profit organization

The trial registry number for eligible papers will be

collected during the submission process.

Toolkits

Springer Nature endorses the toolkits and guidelines

produced by the following bodies:

Committee on Publication Ethics

Good Publication Practice

Medical Publishing Insights and Practices Initiative

Competing Interests

In the interests of transparency and to help readers form

their own judgments of potential bias, authors must

declare whether or not there are any competing interests

in relation to the work described. This information must

be included in their cover letter and after the

acknowledgements of their manuscript. In cases where

the authors declare a competing interest, a statement to

that effect is published as part of the article. If no such

conflict exists, the statement will simply read that the

authors have nothing to disclose.

For the purposes of this statement, competing interests

are defined as those of a financial nature that, through

their potential influence on behaviour or content, or

from perception of such potential influences, could

undermine the objectivity, integrity or perceived value

of a publication. They can include any of the following:

• Funding: Research support (including salaries,

equipment, supplies, reimbursement for attending

symposia, and other expenses) by organizations

that may gain or lose financially through this

publication. The role of the funding body in the

design of the study, collection and analysis of data

and decision to publish should be stated.

• Employment: Recent (while engaged in the

research project), present or anticipated

employment by any organization that may gain or

lose financially through this publication.

Revised October 31

, 2023 www.nature.com/lsa

• Personal financial interests: Stocks or shares in

companies that may gain or lose financially

through publication; consultation fees or other

forms of remuneration from organizations that

may gain or lose financially; patents or patent

applications whose value may be affected by

publication.

It is difficult to specify a threshold at which a financial

interest becomes significant, but note that many US

universities require faculty members to disclose interests

exceeding $10,000 or 5% equity in a company. Any such

figure is arbitrary, so we offer as one possible practical

alternative guideline: "Declare all interests that could

embarrass you were they to become publicly known

after your work was published." We do not consider

diversified mutual funds or investment trusts to

constitute a competing financial interest.

The statement must contain an explicit and

unambiguous statement describing any potential conflict

of interest, or lack thereof, for any of the authors as it

relates to the subject of the report. Examples include “Dr.

Smith receives compensation as a consultant for XYZ

Company,” “Dr. Jones and Dr. Smith have financial

holdings in ABC Company,” or “Dr. Jones owns a patent

on the diagnostic device described in this report.” These

statements acknowledging or denying conflicts of

interest must be included in the manuscript under the

heading Conflict of Interest. The Conflict of Interest

disclosure appears in the cover letter, in the manuscript

submission process and before the References section in

the manuscript.

Following the Competing Interests heading, there must

be a listing for each author, detailing the professional

services relevant to the submission. Neither the precise

amount received from each entity nor the aggregate

income from these sources needs to be provided.

Professional services include any activities for which the

individual is, has been, or will be compensated with

cash, royalties, fees, stock or stock options in exchange

for work performed, advice or counsel provided, or for

other services related to the author’s professional

knowledge and skills. This would include, but not

necessarily be limited to, the identification of

organizations from which the author received contracts

or in which he or she holds an equity stake if

professional services were provided in conjunction with

the transaction.

Examples of declarations are:

• Conflict of Interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

• Conflict of Interest.

Dr Caron's work has been funded by the NIH. He

has received compensation as a member of the

scientific advisory board of Acadia

Pharmaceutical and owns stock in the company.

He also has consulted for Lundbeck and received

compensation. Dr Rothman and Dr Jensen declare

no potential conflict of interest.

Pre- and Post-Submissions

Authors are welcome to post pre-submission versions or

the original submitted version of the manuscript on a

personal blog, a collaborative wiki or a recognized

preprint server (such as arXiv and bioRxiv) at any time.

For content published under a Creative Commons

license, authors can replace the submitted version with

the final published version at publication as long as a

publication reference and URL to the published version

on the journal website are provided.

Post Acceptance

Once a manuscript is accepted, the paper will be sent for

typesetting. In approximately 7-10 business days, the

corresponding author will receive a link to our online

portal to complete the Article Processing Charge (APC)

payment form. Then the corresponding author will

receive an email with a link to complete the necessary

open access Licence to Publish agreement on behalf of all

authors. Government employees from the United States

and UK are required to complete relevant government

open access license to publish forms which are available

via the portal.

Please note that the proofs will not be sent until these

forms be completed. In order to avoid any delay in the

publication of your work, we suggest that the

corresponding author “whitelist” emails from the

@springernature.com exchange to ensure that these

messages are received and that we be notified at

acceptance if the corresponding author will be traveling

or otherwise unavailable to take action in a timely

manner.

Policy about conference submissions

If a submission is only presented in the conference

abstracts and talks, Light: Science & Applications (LSA) is

Revised October 31

, 2023 www.nature.com/lsa

happy to consider it. But if a submission contains major

results and materials that have been published in a

conference proceedings, then in principle, LSA would

not consider it for review. However, if the published

results only constitute very small part of the paper,

please send a pre-inquiry letter (including the drafted

manuscript, details of the conference proceeding paper,

permission to re-use previously published material and

proper citation) to [email protected]c.cn. The LSA

Editorial Office will decide whether the submission is

qualified.

Electronic manipulation of images

Digital image enhancement is acceptable practice,

although it can result in the presentation of

unrepresentative data as well as in the loss of

meaningful signals. During manipulation of images a

positive relationship between the original data and the

resulting electronic image must be maintained. If a

figure has been subjected to significant electronic

manipulation, the specific nature of the enhancements

must be noted in the figure legend or in the 'Materials

and methods' section. The editors reserve the right to

request original versions of figures from the authors of a

paper under consideration.

Supplementary information for editors

and reviewers

Any manuscripts under review or accepted for

publication elsewhere should accompany the submission

if they are relevant to its scientific assessment.

Authors should also provide upon submission any kind

of supplementary material that will aid the review

process.

Peer Review

The journal operates single blind peer review.

Manuscripts sent out for peer review are evaluated by at

least one independent reviewer (often two or more).

Authors are welcome to suggest independent reviewers

to evaluate their manuscript, as well as request

individuals or laboratories. All recommendations are

considered, but the choice of reviewers is at the editors’

discretion. To expedite the review process, only papers

that seem most likely to meet editorial criteria are sent

for external review. Papers judged by the editors to be of

insufficient general interest or otherwise inappropriate

are rejected promptly without external review. The

editors then make a decision based on the reviewers'

evaluations:

• Accept, with or without editorial revisions.

• Revise, with the author addressing concerns

raised by the reviewers before a final decision is

reached.

• Reject outright, typically on grounds of specialist

interest, lack of novelty, insufficient conceptual advance

or major technical and/or interpretational problems.

Appeals

Please note that all Light: Science & Applications (LSA)

manuscripts must go through rigorous peer-review and

balanced comments by editor and editor-in-chief. In

most cases, general appeal will not be accepted.

However, there might be rare cases where reviewers

may overlook or misunderstand the key point in the

manuscript, makes substantial errors of fact or there is

significant evidence of conflict, in which case further

consideration may be merited, but only if a reversal of

that reviewer's opinion would have changed the original

decision. In this case, an appeal may be raised.

Please note following points when presenting an appeal:

• Only one appeal is permitted for each manuscript;

• Appeal should be sent to light_lsa@ciomp.ac.cn

within a month after the final decision;

• Manuscripts cannot be submitted elsewhere while

an appeal is being considered;

• Appeals are granted only to rectify errors and

should not be considered a second submission

chance.

Please provide the following information with the

appeal letter:

• Reason for appeal;

• A statement of the innovation and impact of the

manuscript;

• A point-by-point response to the referees’

comments (please be sure that all the referees’

technical comments have been satisfactorily

addressed (not just some of them)).

Appeal results:

• Appeal accepted: The revised manuscript is

treated as a new manuscript;

• Appeal rejected: No further consideration for this

manuscript.

Correction and retraction policy

We recognize our responsibility to correct errors.

Content published online is final and cannot be

amended. The online version is part of the published

Revised October 31

, 2023 www.nature.com/lsa

record; therefore the original version must be preserved

and changes to the paper should be made as a formal

correction. If an error is noticed after online publication

an HTML (or full-text) version of the correction will be

created and linked to the original article. Please note the

following policy for making corrections to online peer-

reviewed content:

• Publisher Correction. Notification of an important

error made by the journal that affects the

publication record or the scientific integrity of the

paper, or the reputation of the authors, or of the

journal.

• Author Correction. Notification of an important

error made by the author(s) that affects the

publication record or the scientific integrity of the

paper, or the reputation of the authors or the

journal.

• Retraction. Notification of invalid results. All co-

authors must sign a retraction specifying the error

and stating briefly how the conclusions are

affected.

Decisions about corrections are made by the Editor

(sometimes with advice of peer reviewers) and this

sometimes involves author consultation. Requests to

make corrections that do not affect the paper in a

significant way or impair the reader's understanding of

the contribution (a spelling mistake or grammatical

error, for example) are not considered. In cases where co-

authors disagree about a correction, the Editor will take

advice from independent peer reviewers and impose the

appropriate correction, noting the dissenting author(s) in

the text of the published version.

FURTHER INFORMATION

For inquiries related to submission requirements, please contact the Editorial Office. For inquiries related to advertising,

subscriptions, permissions, papers in production or publishing a supplement, please contact the Publisher’s Office.