About Iontronics

Iontronics

Iontronics is an international, peer-reviewed, gold open-access journal published by OAE Publishing Inc. and based in Beijing, China. It is billed as the world's first journal dedicated entirely to iontronics — the field in which ions, rather than electrons alone, are the primary carriers of information and energy. Volume 1 appeared in 2025, opening with Editor-in-Chief Di Wei's inaugural editorial on 22 August 2025, and Volume 2 followed in 2026. The Editor-in-Chief is Di Wei of the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Zhonglin Wang is Honorary Editor-in-Chief. The journal is indexed in Lens, and by late 2026 it had published about 40 articles.

The journal's homepage states its test of relevance plainly: it publishes research in which ionic transport, ionic-electronic coupling interfaces, or ion-enabled functions play a central role. Key areas include ion transport and interfaces, nanofluidics, ionic and soft matter, iontronic sensing and bioelectronics, ionic computing and neuromorphic systems, energy conversion and storage, and self-powered systems. For a field that previously had to place its work across nanoenergy, materials, fluids, electronics and bioengineering journals, Iontronics offers, for the first time, a journal whose entire scope is the field itself.

The world's first iontronics journal

OAE Publishing describes Iontronics as the world's first journal dedicated to iontronics, established to serve the rapidly growing global research community working at the interface of ions, materials, electronics, energy systems and bio-inspired technologies. Di Wei's inaugural editorial makes the same claim in its own terms: Iontronics is the first international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal dedicated entirely to this transformative field, launched in response to a rapidly growing demand for a rigorous and focused platform to support the expanding global community working on ionic charge-based devices and systems.

The mission stated in that editorial is to advance the science and engineering of iontronics by publishing innovative research that explores the use of ions as primary information and energy carriers. That formulation distinguishes iontronics from conventional electronics. Where electronic devices move electrons and holes through solids, iontronic systems move ions — in fluids, soft materials, nanochannels and biological-like media — and exploit the coupling between ionic and electronic signals at interfaces. A dedicated journal allows that distinction to be the starting point of every article, rather than something each author must re-explain to readers of a neighbouring discipline.

Founding editorial and first volumes

Volume 1 of Iontronics appeared in 2025. Its opening article is Di Wei's inaugural editorial, IONTRONICS inaugural editorial: defining a new frontier with iontronics, published on 22 August 2025, with DOI 10.20517/iontronics.2025.01. The editorial records that it was received on 18 August 2025 and accepted on 21 August 2025, and it sets out the journal's mission, its welcome for original research articles, reviews, perspectives and methods papers, and an initial set of topics including ionic energy harvesting and storage, soft iontronic interfaces, nanofluidics and nanotechnology, and ionic logic and computing.

Volume 2 followed in 2026. By late 2026 the journal had published about 40 articles — the publisher's figures list 40 articles, 151 authors, 220 reviewers and 50 on-board editors — and its early content shows the field's range. Examples include the review on iontronic logic control driven by dynamic electrical double layer regulation by Xiang Li, Zhong Lin Wang and Di Wei, published on 28 November 2025; the perspective on ionic superfluidics as an emerging framework for ion transport in confined channels; the 2026 review on modulating multi-ion dynamics for high-performance iontronic systems; work on hydrovoltaic energy and intelligence where ions meet electrons; and articles on photo-iontronics for neuromorphic vision and on flexible iontronic pressure sensing. The journal received OAE's New Journal of the Year award in January 2026.

Editorial leadership in Beijing

The Editor-in-Chief is Professor Di Wei, of the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. OAE's biographical material describes him as a Principal Investigator at that institute and Director of the Iontronics Laboratory, whose research seeks to establish iontronics as a new technological paradigm by programming ion–electron interactions for energy conversion, information processing, chemical reactions, sensing and intelligent systems. His listed research interests include 2D nanofluidics, room-temperature quantum confinement phenomena, triboiontronic devices, printed electronics, wearable and textile-integrated energy and sensing devices, flexible energy harvesting and sensing systems based on triboelectric and piezoelectric nanogenerators, and self-powered bioinspired electronic devices. He has authored approximately 200 scientific papers and authored or edited 10 books, according to the publisher's biography.

Zhonglin Wang is Honorary Editor-in-Chief. The publisher describes him as internationally recognised as a founding pioneer of nanoenergy and nanogenerator technologies, who pioneered nanogenerators for harvesting distributed and irregular mechanical energy, established the fields of piezotronics and piezo-phototronics, and made foundational contributions to understanding contact electrification and interfacial charge transfer, providing an important scientific basis for triboelectric nanogenerators and emerging triboelectric iontronics. The journal's editorial board pages also list honorary editorial roles beyond the founding description, and readers should consult the current board listing on the journal site for the complete and up-to-date board. The editorial board as a whole is described in the inaugural editorial as a global team of leading experts in nanofluidic ion dynamics, interface chemistry, flexible electronics and applied physics.

Launch ceremony in Beijing

The inaugural editorial board meeting and launch ceremony of Iontronics were held in Beijing on 10 October 2025. Organised by OAE Publishing Inc., the event brought together leading scholars, editorial board members, young researchers and publishing experts to discuss the future development of the journal and the rapidly emerging field of iontronics. Attendees included Di Wei, Zhonglin Wang, Liping Wen, Ping Yu and Zhiping Xu, among other editorial board members and invited guests. In his opening remarks, Di Wei emphasised the importance of establishing a dedicated journal for iontronics at a time when the field is experiencing rapid growth. Representing OAE Publishing, Executive CEO Min Fan reaffirmed the publisher's commitment to supporting emerging scientific disciplines through high-quality scholarly publishing, international collaboration and academic service initiatives.

A launch ceremony for a journal might seem ceremonial only, but for a first-in-field title it serves a substantive purpose: it publicly assembles the community the journal claims to serve and puts its editors, board and publisher in one place at the start. The October 2025 Beijing event did that for Iontronics, several weeks after the first editorial had appeared online in August 2025, confirming that the journal began as both a publishing project and a community-building one.

Scope: ions as information and energy carriers

The journal's scope, as stated on its homepage, covers ion transport and interfaces; nanofluidics; ionic and soft matters; iontronic sensing and bioelectronics; ionic computing and neuromorphic systems; and energy conversion, storage and self-powered systems. The inaugural editorial's topic list overlaps and extends that description, welcoming work on ionic energy harvesting and storage, soft iontronic interfaces, nanofluidics and nanotechnology, and ionic logic and computing, among other topics. Articles are expected to place ionic transport, ionic-electronic coupling interfaces or ion-enabled functions at the centre of the work.

Each area can be understood through that central test. Nanofluidics studies how fluids and ions behave in nanoscale channels, where confinement changes transport in ways bulk systems do not show. Iontronic sensing and bioelectronics use ionic signals to detect, measure and interface with biological and soft systems. Ionic computing and neuromorphic systems explore whether ion-based devices can carry and process information in ways inspired by biological signalling. Energy conversion, storage and self-powered systems use ion movement to harvest, store and deliver energy. A manuscript that merely uses an electrolyte incidentally would not meet the journal's stated centre-of-work test; a manuscript that advances understanding or application of ionic transport, coupling or function would.

Article types and how to submit

Iontronics welcomes original research articles, reviews, perspectives and methods papers, as stated in its inaugural editorial. Original research reports new iontronic devices, systems, measurements and findings. Reviews consolidate a fast-forming literature for a community that is still defining its subfields. Perspectives allow leading researchers to frame directions for the field — the early perspective on ionic superfluidics is an example. Methods papers document techniques on which reproducible iontronics research depends. Submissions are made through OAE's submission system linked from the journal homepage at oaepublish.com/ions.

The journal is gold open access: articles are freely available to readers, published under open-access terms. The inaugural editorial itself is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, as stated on the article. A notice for a 2026 journal symposium states that an APC waiver will be granted for all papers submitted before the end of 2028; authors should verify the current article processing charge position on the journal site before submitting, since waiver terms are time-limited. The journal reports a median time to first editorial decision of 12 days, with listed times of 50 days from submission to acceptance and 7 days from acceptance to publication.

Indexing, readership and activity

Iontronics is indexed in Lens, as stated on its homepage. Publisher figures on the journal site record 52,462 article views and 17,999 article downloads, alongside its counts of articles, authors, reviewers and editors, and two special topics. The journal also runs calls for papers for special topics, including topics on advances in wearable sensing and energy harvesting and on iontronic microdroplet systems, each with a submission deadline of 31 December 2026 listed on the site. Its academic talks series has carried interviews with researchers working where iontronics meets neuromorphic computing, electronic skin and tactile intelligence, and interfacial charge in energy systems.

For a journal launched in 2025, these activity indicators should be read as signs of an operating, promoted title rather than as measures of long-term standing. It has no long citation history yet, and this profile makes no claim about impact beyond the facts recorded here: first-in-field positioning, two volumes across 2025 and 2026, about 40 articles, a named Beijing-based editorial leadership, Lens indexing, and an OAE New Journal of the Year award in January 2026.

Beijing base and the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems

The journal's editorial home is Beijing. Di Wei's affiliation, given on the inaugural editorial, is the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 101400, China, and the launch ceremony was held in Beijing on 10 October 2025. That institute connection places the journal inside the research environment where nanogenerators, triboelectric systems and iontronics have been actively developed, and where the Editor-in-Chief directs an Iontronics Laboratory. At the same time, the journal is published by OAE Publishing Inc., governed by an international board, and addressed to a global community — its featured articles, interviews and special topics draw authors and speakers well beyond a single institute.

In summary, Iontronics, published by OAE Publishing, edited by Di Wei with Zhonglin Wang as Honorary Editor-in-Chief, Volume 1 in 2025 and Volume 2 in 2026, is the first journal created solely for iontronics. Its contribution is definitional as much as editorial: by gathering ion transport, nanofluidics, soft ionic matter, sensing and bioelectronics, ionic computing, and ionic energy conversion and storage into one gold open-access journal, it gives a new field a shared home, a shared vocabulary and a peer-reviewed record of its own.