About the Conference Proceedings Series

Aims & Scope

Since its first edition in 2011, the SiliconPV Conference has established itself as one of the world’s top PV conferences where in-depth new scientific insights and reviews on technological excellence in crystalline Si-based PV technology are presented. The conference series connects the international scientific community and promotes international exchange. The outstanding program comprises high-level scientific presentations chosen from a double blind reviewing process. The conference is held in conjunction with the nPV workshop, giving a complete overview of all trends, innovations and developments of n-type technology. 

The conference takes place annually, each year in a different European country.

Open Access policy

SiliconPV Conference Proceedings are an open-access proceedings series. This means all content can be accessed immediately after publication free of charge. Authors retain copyright and all content can be reused unrestrictedly according to the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0. Preprints (pre-review manuscripts), post prints (authors accepted manuscripts, AAM), and the version of record (VoR) can be deposited without restrictions.

Please find further information on license and copyright on the page Submissions.

Indexing

SiliconPV Conference Proceedings are indexed in Dimensions, DOAJ, Google Scholar, and J-Gate.

Peer review

To ensure an objective rating of the scientific work, the SiliconPV conference uses a “double blind” (i.e. anonymous) reviewing process for the abstracts and a two-step reviewing process for the proceedings; this review process includes that the paper might be sent back to the authors for corrections / modifications or might be rejected.
Depending on the quality of the abstract, the author may be invited to present a poster or oral presentation at the conference.

Acceptance of the abstract does not guarantee acceptance of the paper for the proceedings.

Papers that are not presented at the conference will not be accepted for the conference proceedings.

Review criteria for abstracts and papers include:

  • Significance, Relevance and Interest:
    • Significance: The overall importance or worth of the reported work, including implications for practices, policies or further research
    • Relevance: Please make sure that our abstract fits into the scope of the conference and the topic you chose. Abstracts with inappropriate contents or commercial advertisements will be rejected.
    • Interest: Interest to the conference participants: your publication should have significant impact for their work.
  • Originality: The measure of the creativity or inventiveness of the author, including new concepts, techniques, and methods
  • Scientific and technical quality of your results, organization, completeness, references, formalities, clarity:
    • Scientific and technical quality:
      Explanation of results (already obtained, not planned!) using a sound scientific background; Stating errors and, as much as possible, statistical significance of the measured data; Usage of independently confirmed efficiencies (if possible).
    • Organization:
      The careful planning and logical structure of the manuscript, including a logical presentation and analysis of the results, findings, inferences and conclusions.
    • Completeness:
      The oneness or wholeness of the work. In this usage, the reported work should be marked by a unity and continuity of parts and show interdependence between these parts.
    • References:
      The adequate and accurate use of references to attribute the work of others or yours (but in a neutral way).
    • Formalities:
      Clear presentation of tables, graphs, and illustrations; appropriate style and ease of reading; conformance with specifications for length and format details, proper layout (graphs, etc.).
    • Clarity: The correctness of English spelling and grammar, as well as the clear presentation of tables, graphs, and illustrations.

Data and other underlying material

Research output is not just text (journal articles, books, or conference papers), but also data, model code, software, etc. All of these outputs deserve acknowledgement and should be as open and FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) as possible. All materials (data, code, etc.) supporting the findings presented in submitted manuscripts should therefore be deposited in a FAIR-aligned public repository. A registry to find suitable data repositories is re3data.org. Whenever no ethical or legal constrains apply, unrestricted access to all underlying data and other material should be provided. In addition, data (and other material underpinning the findings) need to be cited in the text and the respective reference must be included in the manuscript’s reference list. Please refer to the data citation principles of FORCE11 or the FORCE11 software citation principles, respectively. Every author should include a data availability statement in their manuscript describing how the data underlying the findings of their contribution can be accessed and reused. If the submission is not based on data or the data it is based on is restricted (third-party data, legal or ethical constraints), this should be explained in the data availability statement, too. Reciprocal linking of data and other underlying material and the contribution through persistent identifiers (e.g. DOIs) is best practice.

Long-term archiving

All proceedings volumes in SiliconPV Conference Proceedings are archived long-term through the TIB.

Publication ethics

Standards on ethics in publishing safeguard that publications are high quality, credible, and that authors receive appropriate credit for their works. For authors, it is therefore crucial to avoid

  • Data fabrication and falsification: Data fabrication means the scientist did not actually do the research, but made up the presented data. Data falsification means the manipulation of data (e.g. removing inconvenient data points) in order to provide a false impression. Data fabrication and falsification is scientific misconduct.
  • Plagiarism: Using the thoughts and works, even small pieces, of another person without providing appropriate credit is fraudulent.
  • Multiple submissions: It is dishonest to submit the same manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously. This practise waste time of editors and reviewers and can harm the reputation of the respective journals.
  • Redundant publications (or 'salami' publications): This means publishing various (often very similar) papers based on the same research.
  • Improper author contribution or attribution: The author list must only contain persons who contributed significantly (in a scientific sense) to the presented work. Likewise, all persons who made such contribution must be included.
  • Citation manipulation: excessive author and journal self-citations, honorary citations, and any form of citation stacking is scientific malpractice.

In accordance with the COPE position statement on Authorship and AI tools, AI tools (such as ChatGPT) cannot be listed as authors of a paper. These tools cannot take responsibility for the submitted work and hence do not meet the requirements for authorship such as the ability to declare competing interests or to agree to the license agreement.

Not only authors need to adhere to ethical standards, but also editors and reviewers:

  • Editors and reviewers must give unbiased consideration to all submitted manuscripts, review each on its merits without regard to race, gender, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the author(s).
  • Editors and reviewers must not handle manuscripts they are directly affiliated with.
  • Editors and reviewers must avoid any real or perceived conflict of interests.
  • Editors and reviewers must respect the intellectual independence of authors.
  • Editors and reviewers must respect confidentially of any non-pubic information they see during peer review.

TIB Open Publishing plans to become a COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) member. Therefore, SiliconPV Conference Proceedings subscribes to the COPE's Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors as well as the Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers as best practice.

Plagiarism detection

SiliconPV Conference Proceedings uses Crossref’s Similarity Check to detect plagiarism in the submitted manuscripts. It is up to the editors to decide whether any manuscript is rejected because of plagiarism.

Competing interests

Competing interest, also known as conflicts of interest (COIs), arise when issues outside research may fairly be viewed as impacting the work's neutrality or the objectivity of it’s assessment. This can happen at any point of the research cycle. Competing interest include

  • Financial: funding and other payments, goods and services received or expected by the authors relating to the subject of the work or from an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work
  • Affiliations: being employed by, on the advisory board for, or a member of an organization with an interest in the outcome of the work
  • Intellectual property: patents or trademarks owned by someone or their organization
  • Personal: friends, family, relationships, and other close personal connections
  • Ideology: beliefs or activism, for example, political or religious, relevant to the work
  • Academic: competitors or someone whose work is critiqued.

Competing interests do not necessarily prevent the publication of research, or prohibit the participation of someone in the review process. However, competing interests do need to be recorded. A straightforward explanation of all potential issues – whether they have had an impact or not – helps to make informed judgements about the research and its review.

Handling of misconduct

There are two distinct circumstances to be noted: misconduct (i.e. serious scientific fraud such as data fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism) and honest errors. Errors may be due to inattentiveness (e.g. mistake in methods) and are not to be regarded as misconduct. SiliconPV Conference Proceedings will follow the COPE flowcharts in cases of suspected or proven misconduct. SiliconPV Conference Proceedings will take steps to correct the scientific record if it considers clear proof of misconduct.

Please find further information on post-publication corrections on the page Submissions.

Complaints

Any complaints should be directed to the editors of the respective volume.

Disclaimer

Any opinions expressed and information presented in SiliconPV Conference Proceedings are the views of the contributors and authors and not of the volume editors or TIB Open Publishing. The publication of contributions does not constitute endorsement or approval by the series and/or its publisher. SiliconPV Conference Proceedings and TIB Open Publishing cannot be held responsible for any errors or for any consequences arising from the use of the information contained in this series. While every effort is made by the volume editors to make sure that no erroneous or false data, view, or statement is published in this series, TIB Open Publishing, and the volume editors accept no liability of any kind for the consequences of any such inaccurate or misleading data, information, opinion, or statement.

Financing

SiliconPV Conference Proceedings are financed through the conference budget without separate costs for the participants.