Chinese Physics Letters (CPL) is international in authorship and in readership, and our referees are carefully selected from the international research community. We would be interested to hear from you if you wish to volunteer as a referee or if you wish to recommend a colleague who would be a suitable referee.

Conflict of interest

Please contact us if you are asked to review an article in the following instances:

· you are in direct competition with the authors

· you are a co-worker or collaborator with one of the authors

· you are in a position to exploit the authors' work (commercially or otherwise)

· you are in a position which prevents you from giving an objective opinion of the work.

We will then select an alternative referee.

Acceptance criteria

As the flagship journal of Chinese Physical Society, CPL is striving to publish high-quality papers in terms of novelty, significance, and broad interest. We hope the accepted papers should meet one or more criteria in the following aspects:

1. Present important and novel physics

2. Introduce new techniques or methodologies with significant impact

3. Make essential steps towards solving a critical problem, and thus make a significant contribution in a specific research area

4. Generate broad interest for CPL's readers

Unbiased consideration is given to all manuscripts regardless of race, gender, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Review process

The editorial office check if the manuscript adheres to the requirements in terms of scope, writing, and formatting. The editorial board members make the initial evaluation on the academic quality to decide whether the manuscript should be sent out for peer review or not. The reviewers are recommended at this point. If the editorial board members would like to participate in the peer review, it is not necessary to send the manuscript to other reviewers. After receiving enough valid review reports (usually 2-3), the editor will send them to authors with a decision made by the editorial board member or editorial office. If the review reports differ widely, the editor may invite one more reviewer before making a decision. Reviewers are anonymous to authors.

Referees are asked to consider:

1. the degree of importance of the paper in its specific field.

2. the degree of general interest of the paper

3. are the conclusions and interpretations valid and are they supported by the data?

4. Is the article clear and comprehensible?

CPL does not accept or condone the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) or AI chatbots to write peer review reports, either fully or partially. The unpublished manuscript or its related information must not be entered into databases or AI tools that do not guarantee confidentiality. LLMs and AI chatbots are not subject experts as they lack the ability or comprehension to assume responsibility for work they have helped create and are therefore unable to adhere to the ethical standards of CPL.