The Best of pss

Contrary to the overall trend in the worldwide economy, 2009 actually has turned out a good year for the physica status solidi journal series. With more than 10.000 published pages, pss (a), pss (b), pss (c), and pss (RRL) continue to be major players on the stage of journals covering the entire broad spectrum of solid state physics. While more and more highly specialized journals appear on the market, the broad scope of physica status solidi constitutes an opportunity and a challenge at the same time: An opportunity for those who from time to time look across the borders of their own fi eld of specialization and become interested in and are inspired by seemingly unrelated results of colleagues in other fields. A challenge, because the organization of a high quality peer review process for a broad range of topics requires a much larger base of knowledgeable referees and puts a higher demand on the Editorial Boards and the editorial staff. Although we at physica status solidi are certainly not perfect, I am confi dent that we have done a pretty good job here again in 2009. This is reflected by the continuously increasing Impact Factor of the ISI-listed pss journals (see fi gure), as well as by the large number of accesses and downloads on the internet. We are particularly proud of the fact that the fi rst offi cial Impact Factor of the youngest member in the pss family, the Rapid Research Letters, is higher than 2. This is defi nitely a good start and motivates us to further develop the unique profi le of pss (RRL) as the fastest peer-reviewed journal in solid state physics. Impact Factor development for the pss journal family (according to the ISI Journal Citation Reports). The values for RRL during the years 2005–2007 (half-transparent bars) have been unoffi cially calculated for the former Rapid Research Letters sections in pss (a) and (b). My best personal wishes and thanks go to all our contributors, readers, referees, my fellow Editors, and the dedicated staff of the Editorial Offi ce in Berlin. May 2010 be a good year for all of you!