About Harmonics and Scattering

Harmonics and Scattering

Harmonics and Scattering, abbreviated as HAS, is an international, peer-reviewed diamond open access journal dedicated to research on harmonics and scattering technologies. It is published by AIP Publishing in partnership with Hebei University of Technology (HEBUT) in China, and it is hosted on the AIP Publishing platform. The journal was created to serve researchers working across optics, photonics, materials science and applied physics, bridging fundamental physical science and practical technological application. Its subject matter centres on two closely related families of phenomena: harmonic generation, in which light or other waves are converted to new frequencies, and scattering, in which light, electrons and particles are redirected as they interact with matter. By bringing those topics together in a single specialist title, the journal offers a dedicated home for work that might otherwise be scattered across general optics, physics and materials journals.

The journal is based with its partner university in Tianjin, China, although HEBUT is administered by neighbouring Hebei province. That unusual arrangement, explained in more detail below, reflects the university's long history in the city. For readers and authors, the essential facts are straightforward: Harmonics and Scattering is a Chinese-university partner journal published internationally by a major American physical-sciences publisher, it is free for everyone to read, and it charges its authors nothing to publish.

Announcement and launch timeline

AIP Publishing announced the new publishing partnership with Hebei University of Technology on 11 November 2025, in an announcement issued from Melville, New York. The announcement presented Harmonics and Scattering as a journal to launch in 2026, developed jointly by AIP Publishing and the university. According to that timetable, the journal would open for submissions in December 2025, only weeks after the partnership was made public, with its first issue originally scheduled for publication in March 2026.

In the event, the journal's first issue appeared as Volume 1, Issue 1, dated September 2026, on the AIP Publishing platform. The issue opened with an editorial by the Editor-in-Chief, Zhiwei Lü, titled "Welcome to Harmonics and Scattering," published as article 010401 in volume 1 of the journal in 2026. The presence of a live first volume confirms that the title moved beyond its announcement phase and into regular publication during 2026. The journal's home on the AIP platform sits alongside AIP Publishing's established physical-sciences titles, giving the new journal immediate visibility to the publisher's existing readership in physics and related disciplines.

A diamond open access model

The most distinctive feature of Harmonics and Scattering is its publishing model. It is a diamond open access journal. In the terminology of scholarly publishing, diamond open access means that a journal is free for readers worldwide and also free for authors: there are no subscription barriers on the reading side and no article processing charges, or APCs, on the publishing side. AIP Publishing's announcement states this explicitly: as a diamond open access publication, HAS will be freely available to readers worldwide, with no article processing charges for authors, ensuring that research can be disseminated without barriers.

That model matters for a journal in a fast-moving experimental field. Researchers in countries or institutions with limited subscription budgets can read everything the journal publishes, and researchers without access to publication funds are not excluded from submitting their best work. AIP Publishing presented the partnership as part of its wider mission. Penelope Lewis, the publisher's Chief Publishing Officer, said the partnership reflected AIP Publishing's mission to connect science and communities worldwide, and that working with Hebei University of Technology allowed the publisher to advance an important field while embodying a shared commitment to open science and the free exchange of knowledge.

Scope: harmonics, scattering and light–matter interaction

The journal's stated scope is broad within its two named themes. AIP Publishing lists the areas in which it publishes original research articles and reviews as harmonic generation and propagation; light, electron and particle scattering; nonlinear optical phenomena and technology; quantum and classical models of harmonic generation; scattering techniques for material characterisation; harmonic and scattering materials; optical enhancement technologies; frequency conversion and mixing; and applications and industrial implementations of harmonic and scattering technologies. The journal's article types, as described for the title, also include letters and perspectives alongside original research articles and reviews.

Underpinning those topic headings is a single physical subject: how light and matter interact. The journal seeks, in AIP Publishing's words, to illuminate the fundamental principles of light–matter interaction while fostering innovations that shape future technologies. That framing explains why the scope reaches from quantum and classical theory at one end to industrial implementation at the other. A theoretical paper modelling harmonic generation, an experimental paper demonstrating a new frequency-conversion technique, and an applied paper using a scattering method to characterise a material can all sit within the same journal, because each addresses the same underlying interaction from a different position.

Applications across photonics, spectroscopy and materials science

AIP Publishing describes Harmonics and Scattering as publishing original, high-impact research articles and comprehensive reviews in scattering technology, harmonic generation and their interdisciplinary applications across photonic devices, high-energy physics, spectroscopy and materials science. Those four application areas indicate the readership the journal intends to reach. Photonic devices are the engineered systems — lasers, converters, sensors and optical components — in which harmonic and scattering effects are put to work. High-energy physics uses scattering as a fundamental experimental probe. Spectroscopy depends on the interaction of light with matter to identify and measure materials. Materials science both supplies the novel materials in which new harmonic and scattering behaviour is found and uses scattering techniques to understand materials it already has.

The journal has also announced special topics that reflect current activity in the field, including Brillouin scattering and light–matter interactions at the micro-nano scale. Special topics of that kind allow a young journal to concentrate submissions around a defined theme, gather a coherent set of papers, and signal to a research community that its particular subject is actively welcomed rather than merely tolerated within a broad scope.

Inside the first issue

Volume 1, Issue 1 gives a concrete picture of the journal in practice. After Editor-in-Chief Zhiwei Lü's opening editorial, "Welcome to Harmonics and Scattering" (2026, article 010401), the issue's reviews section included a review on frequency locking techniques for nonlinear frequency conversion, subtitled "Principles, advances and challenges," authored by Zhenxu Bai and a team of co-authors including Jianquan Yao and Zhiwei Lü, published as article 010601. Frequency conversion is one of the journal's core listed topics, so a major review of frequency locking for nonlinear frequency conversion is a representative choice for an inaugural issue.

The research articles in the first issue likewise cluster around the journal's declared themes, with a strong emphasis on Raman scattering and laser science. Titles listed for the issue include work on the temporal shaping of a nanosecond diamond Raman laser via pump manipulation, a cylindrical-lens-focusing multipass configuration in sub-atmospheric pressure addressing the energy–beam quality trade-off in a stimulated hydrogen Raman laser, and a study modulating stimulated Raman scattering of water–glycerol mixtures via resonance enhancement and vibrational mode competition. Together, the editorial, the review and the research articles show a journal whose early content is anchored in nonlinear optics and stimulated scattering — the home territory of its editorial leadership — while its published scope invites submissions from the wider harmonics and scattering community.

Editorial leadership

Harmonics and Scattering is led by Professor Zhiwei Lü of Hebei University of Technology. Professor Lü is the Director of the Center for Advanced Laser Technology (CALT) at HEBUT and serves as Deputy Director of the Laser Professional Committee of the Chinese Optical Society. His research home in advanced laser technology aligns directly with the journal's early content in Raman lasers, nonlinear frequency conversion and stimulated scattering.

In the statement issued with the launch announcement, Professor Lü set out the journal's ambition: "At a time when the frontiers of light science are expanding at an unprecedented pace, Harmonics and Scattering aspires to serve as a leading platform for publishing pioneering research that extends the boundaries of fundamental understanding and drives transformative real-world impact." He invited researchers, engineers and practitioners worldwide — whether exploring theoretical frontiers, pushing experimental boundaries or translating discoveries into real-world applications — to contribute their best work to the journal. That invitation, addressed equally to theorists, experimentalists and translators of research, mirrors the journal's deliberate positioning between fundamental physical science and practical application. His introductory editorial in the first issue, "Welcome to Harmonics and Scattering," performs the same function in the journal itself, formally opening the title to its community.

The partner university: Hebei University of Technology

Hebei University of Technology is one of China's older technological universities. It traces its origin to the Peiyang Technological School, also rendered as the Beiyang Technical School, founded in 1903 under a charter from the Guangxu Emperor, with Zhou Xuexi as its first head. The institution describes itself as the earliest institution in China to cultivate advanced industrial talents, and it established the country's earliest university-run factory. After a series of reorganisations — including a merger into Tianjin University in 1951 and a reassembly as a Hebei institute of technology in the 1960s — it gained its present name, Hebei University of Technology, in 1995.

In 1996 HEBUT was enlisted among the first group of key universities in the national Project 211, and in 2017 it was selected for the national Double First-Class initiative. Since 2014 the university has been jointly built, or co-funded, by the People's Government of Hebei Province, the People's Government of Tianjin and the Ministry of Education of China. That explains the journal's geography: the university is located in Tianjin, where it has campuses, but it is a Hebei provincial university, administered by Hebei and co-funded by Hebei, Tianjin and the Ministry. AIP Publishing describes HEBUT as a leading Chinese institution renowned for its excellence in engineering, materials science and applied physics — the three strengths most relevant to a journal on harmonics and scattering.

The Center for Advanced Laser Technology

The journal's editorial anchor inside the university is the Center for Advanced Laser Technology, known as CALT, which Professor Lü directs. AIP Publishing describes CALT as playing a pivotal role in developing next-generation optical and laser technologies, driving innovation across fundamental research and practical applications. For a journal whose inaugural issue is dominated by laser and scattering research, having its Editor-in-Chief direct a dedicated advanced laser centre gives the title an identifiable research base rather than only a publishing agreement.

CALT's position also helps explain the choice of subject. Harmonic generation and scattering are not abstract interests at HEBUT; they are the working phenomena of laser science, where frequency conversion produces new laser wavelengths and stimulated scattering effects such as Raman and Brillouin scattering can be harnessed, studied or engineered around. A journal edited from a laser technology centre can judge submissions in those areas from direct research experience, which is one reason new specialist journals are commonly anchored in a strong research group at a partner institution.

The publisher: AIP Publishing

AIP Publishing is the publishing arm behind the journal's international platform. It is a wholly owned not-for-profit subsidiary of the American Institute of Physics (AIP), and it supports the charitable, scientific and educational purposes of AIP through scholarly publishing on AIP's behalf and on behalf of its publishing partners. Its stated mission is to advance, promote and serve the physical sciences for the benefit of humanity by breaking barriers to open, fair research communication and empowering researchers to accelerate global progress.

For Hebei University of Technology, the partnership places its journal inside that established physical-sciences publishing operation, with the journal published in collaboration with the university on AIP's platform. For AIP Publishing, the announcement framed the title as an expansion of its network of international partnerships that empower researchers to share their work without financial or geographical barriers. Harmonics and Scattering is therefore best understood as a jointly developed title: the scientific leadership and institutional home are in Tianjin at HEBUT and CALT, while publication, platform and international dissemination are provided by AIP Publishing in the United States.

Position and outlook

Harmonics and Scattering enters a crowded area of physics publishing, but it does so with three distinguishing features. First, its subject definition is unusually specific: few journals name harmonics and scattering together as their entire remit, and that specificity is intended to make the title the natural destination for work that crosses the two. Second, its diamond open access model removes both reading and publishing charges, which remains rare among international physics journals and removes a common barrier for authors. Third, its structure — a Chinese technological university's laser research centre supplying editorial leadership, and a major American learned-society publisher supplying the platform — is a clear example of the international co-publishing partnerships through which many new Chinese-hosted journals now launch.

The journal's record so far is short, as expected for a title announced in November 2025: submissions opened in December 2025, and a first issue, Volume 1, Issue 1, appeared in September 2026, opening with the Editor-in-Chief's welcome editorial and containing reviews and research on nonlinear frequency conversion and stimulated Raman scattering. Its longer-term standing will depend on the usual measures for a new journal — the quality and volume of submissions it attracts beyond its founding community, and its indexing and reputation as its volumes accumulate. On the verified evidence of its launch, however, Harmonics and Scattering is a fully launched, actively publishing journal, not merely an announced one, and its combination of a named specialist scope, a named editor with a matching research centre, and a no-fees open access model gives it a clear identity from its first volume.