Supplementary Materials in Optica

Authors of Optica letters and research articles may include, in addition to the primary manuscript, a document that provides supplementary information such as expanded descriptions of materials and methods. The supplementary information will be published as a PDF file that is linked to the primary manuscript. Although the supplementary information will not be copyedited, it will undergo full peer review and be considered part of the peer-reviewed manuscript. As such, a supplemental PDF file should present only information that would be useful and worthwhile for the reader, for example, details that would be necessary to reproduce an experiment. The article, however, must be coherent without the supplemental PDF file. Supplemental PDF files are not permitted with memoranda.

Certain other supplementary materials—such as videos and machine-readable data tables—can be submitted as stand-alone files for hosting on OSA's Figshare portal. Such items should be associated with a figure or table in the primary manuscript, and the following file types are currently supported:

  • TIFF, EPS, JPEG
  • U3D, Adobe 3D
  • MOV, AVI, MPG, MP4
  • CSV

Authors who wish to include larger datasets, code files, or simulation files are encouraged to place those items in OSA's Figshare portal or an appropriate archival repository and cite them as described in OSA's Author Guidelines for Supplementary Materials.

Supplemental Document

The supplemental document should generally be included as a single PDF file that is linked to the primary manuscript. Use the supplemental document template. Supplemental documents are not copyedited and so should be prepared carefully.

Numbering Items in the Supplemental Document

The supplementary materials document may contain additional figures, tables, equations, etc. Such items should be numbered with an uppercase "S" to identify them as supplementary. For example, number the first figure in the supplemental document "Fig. S1"; the first table, "Table S1"; etc.

Naming Convention for Countable Items

Primary Document
Supplemental Document
Algorithm 1
Algorithm S1
Equation (1)
Equation (S1)
Figure 1
Figure (S1)
Table 1
Table (S1)

Mentioning the Supplemental Document in the Primary Manuscript

The statement "See Supplement 1 for supporting content" should appear at the bottom of the manuscript (just before the references) when a supplemental document is provided.

 

Citations within the Supplemental Document

The supplementary materials document may contain a reference list. The reference list should follow OSA's citation style and should be checked carefully, since no copyediting will be performed by OSA staff.

Citations that are relevant to the primary manuscript and the supplemental document may be included in both places.