Physics & Materials Science Common Citation Styles

The AIP Style is commonly used in physics. It is a numerical citation style where references are numbered in the order they appear in the text and listed in numerical order at the end.

In-Text Example

The optical properties of graphene were extensively studied in recent work.¹

Reference List Examples

  1. J. C. Meyer, A. K. Geim, M. I. Katsnelson, K. S. Novoselov, T. J. Booth, and S. Roth, “The structure of suspended graphene sheets,” Nature 446, 60–63 (2007).
  2. C. Kittel, Introduction to Solid State Physics, 8th ed. (Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, 2005).

AIP Resources:

The ACS Style is often used in chemistry and materials science. ACS allows three formats; the most common for journals is superscript numbers (similar to AIP) or author-date format.

In-Text Examples

  • Superscript Number:

Nanoparticles exhibit unique catalytic properties.¹

  • Author-Date:

Nanoparticles exhibit unique catalytic properties (Smith, 2020).

Reference List Examples (Numbered)

  1. Smith, J. M.; Jones, P. L.; Anderson, R. M. Catalytic Properties of Gold Nanoparticles. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, 142, 1234–1240.
  2. Brown, A. R. Materials Science Fundamentals; Springer: Berlin, 2018.

ACS Resources:

Interdisciplinary Citation Styles

Need APA Style help? Try these helpful websites and books.

Need help citing sources and formatting bibliographies in MLA Style? Look no further than these helpful websites and books.

Citing Sources Research Guide

For information on more citation styles, check out our Citing Sources Research Guide: