Detecting the historical roots of research fields by reference publication year spectroscopy (RPYS)

TL;DR

RPYS is a quantitative method that analyzes citation patterns over publication years to identify the historical roots and influential publications within research fields, demonstrated through graphene and solar cell studies.

Contribution

This paper introduces RPYS, a novel approach for tracing the origins of research fields by analyzing citation year distributions and identifying key historical publications.

Findings

RPYS effectively reveals the foundational publications in research fields.

Application to graphene and solar cell research demonstrates RPYS's utility.

RPYS identifies peaks corresponding to influential historical publications.

Abstract

We introduce the quantitative method named "reference publication year spectroscopy" (RPYS). With this method one can determine the historical roots of research fields and quantify their impact on current research. RPYS is based on the analysis of the frequency with which references are cited in the publications of a specific research field in terms of the publication years of these cited references. The origins show up in the form of more or less pronounced peaks mostly caused by individual publications which are cited particularly frequently. In this study, we use research on graphene and on solar cells to illustrate how RPYS functions, and what results it can deliver.