Micromachines Submission Guide: MDPI Process (2026)

Micromachines is not a stronger version of a selective MEMS journal, and it is not a weaker one. It is a different model. MDPI built it around speed and soundness-based review: the editorial question is whether the work is methodologically sound, reproducible, and within scope, not whether it ranks among the most field-advancing microsystems results of the year. That model shapes everything about how you should prepare the package.

Two consequences matter most. First, the journal is section-based, organized across Physics, Biology and Biomedicine, Chemistry, Materials and Processing, and Engineering and Technology, so scope fit is assessed against a specific section rather than a vague "is this interesting" bar. The pre-check editor has to decide which section a microfluidic biosensor, a piezoelectric MEMS actuator, or a focused-ion-beam fabrication study belongs to.

Second, the pre-check is fast and partly template-driven, so completeness is rewarded and incompleteness is punished early. A technically interesting device with no measured performance can stall before, or inside, the first review round, while a competent, complete, in-scope study moves quickly.

The defining trait of this journal is the soundness bar applied to a device. Where a selective title like Microsystems & Nanoengineering asks whether the result advances the field, Micromachines asks whether the device was actually built, actually measured, and actually reproducible from the text. That is a lower novelty bar and a higher completeness bar. A solid, well-characterized device that is incremental in concept is welcome here in a way it would not be at a flagship; an exciting concept with thin data is not.

The core fit for most submissions is the original research article: a fabricated device with characterization and an application. It works best when the micro/nano-device is the protagonist, the methods are reproducible from the text, and the declarations and data package are complete on first upload.

Ask these questions before you submit:

• is a micro- or nano-scaled device the actual subject of the paper, or is the device a downstream demo of a materials or circuit finding?
• can a competent group rebuild and re-measure the device from the manuscript and supplementary files alone?
• does the paper report measured performance, not just fabrication and imaging?
• are the Data Availability and declarations statements complete and specific, or are they still stub text?

If the answers are uncertain, the scope-and-soundness problem is usually more important than the novelty problem.

The pre-check editor is answering a short list of questions fast.

On scope, the editor asks whether the manuscript belongs in a micro/nano-device journal and in which section. If the device relevance is thin, or the work is really pure materials chemistry or pure electronics with a microfabrication framing, the paper is redirected or returned. On soundness, the question is whether the device is fabricated, characterized, and reproducible. Micromachines does not require the result to be field-defining, but it does require the device to be built correctly, measured properly, and reported in full.

On integrity, the editor checks plagiarism, image integrity (micrographs and process figures are a known manipulation risk), and data availability. MDPI runs integrity checks at pre-check, and gaps here trigger fast returns. On completeness, the editor looks for the declarations block. A manuscript missing Author Contributions, Funding, Data Availability, or Conflicts of Interest reads as not ready, even when the device work is fine.

Manuscript structure: Micromachines expects a defined section set: Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods (fabrication and characterization), Results, Discussion, Conclusions, plus the declarations block. The abstract should make both the device and its measured performance visible, because the abstract is the first thing the pre-check editor and reviewers read. The system asks for 3 to 10 keywords.

Fabrication and characterization readiness: Provide full process detail so the device can be rebuilt: materials, mask layouts or process flow, deposition and etch parameters, and dimensions. Then report the characterization that proves the device works: sensitivity, resolution, frequency response, actuation range, flow rate, yield, or whatever metric the device class is judged on. A research article reporting under roughly 3,500 words of fabrication detail but no measured device performance is the single most common soundness gap we see.

Declarations and data: Draft the Author Contributions (by initials), Funding, Data Availability, and Conflicts of Interest sections before you upload. Where human or animal samples appear (common in microfluidic bioanalysis and organ-on-chip work), add the Institutional Review Board and Informed Consent statements too. At MDPI these are pre-check gates, not post-acceptance paperwork.

Figures, supplementary, and graphical abstract: Figures should be high quality, preferably no less than 600 dpi, in PNG, JPEG, or TIFF, with color figures in RGB. A graphical abstract is commonly used and should summarize the device and its function, not simply restack existing subfigures. Supplementary materials should carry extended process tables, raw characterization datasets, videos of device operation, and additional micrographs. ORCID is expected for the submitting author, and the system will ask for suggested reviewers in the relevant micro/nano subfield.

In our pre-submission review work with Micromachines manuscripts, four failure patterns generate the most consistent pre-check returns and reviewer friction, and they are testable against your own manuscript before you upload.

Across our microsystems and applied-physics pre-submission reviews, the pattern that surprises authors most is that the Micromachines bar is not a novelty filter in the Nature sense; it is a scope-fit-and-soundness filter applied to a device. The manuscripts that get returned fastest are rarely bad ideas. They are competent studies whose device angle, characterization, reproducibility, or declarations block is not ready for a fast, soundness-based screen. Manuscripts coming through pre-submission review for Micromachines split cleanly along these four lines.

Fabrication demonstration with no performance characterization

The single most common pattern we see is a manuscript that fabricates a device, shows beautiful SEM or optical micrographs, and stops there. The process flow is described, the structure is imaged, and there is no measured performance: no sensitivity, no resolution, no frequency response, no flow rate, no yield. Micromachines is a device journal, and a device without measurement is a process note, not a result.

The testable version of this failure: read your own Results section and ask whether a reviewer could state a quantitative metric for the device from your figures and tables. If every figure is a micrograph and none is a characterization curve, the manuscript is a fabrication demo, and the fix is to add the measurement that proves the device does what the introduction claims.

Check whether your Micromachines device shows measured performance, not just fabrication →

Incremental geometry tweak with no new behavior

The second pattern is a paper whose contribution is "we made the same device with a slightly different geometry." A channel that is narrower, an electrode that is interdigitated differently, a membrane that is thinner, with no new function, no new physics, and no performance gain that the geometry change explains. Micromachines accepts incremental work, but incremental still has to mean a measurable difference the reader can use.

The testable version: state, in one sentence, what your device does that the closest prior device did not, and back it with a number. If the only honest answer is "it is a different shape," the contribution is too thin even for a soundness-based journal, and the fix is to either demonstrate the behavior the new geometry enables or reframe the study around the design-rule insight.

Check whether your Micromachines contribution is more than a geometry change →

Scope drift to pure materials or pure electronics

The third pattern is a manuscript whose real subject is a material or a circuit, with a micro/nano-device added so the work can target Micromachines. A new thin-film composition characterized for its own sake, or a signal-processing chain validated in simulation, with a fabricated structure bolted on late. Because the journal is section-based, the pre-check editor has to place the paper in a device-oriented section, and a pure-materials or pure-electronics study does not fit.

The testable version: read your abstract and introduction and ask whether the micro/nano-device, or the material, or the circuit, is the protagonist. If the device only appears in one results subsection while the materials or electronics carry the rest, the scope has drifted off the device, and the fix is to rebuild the framing around the device and its function, or to target a materials or electronics journal instead.

Check whether your Micromachines scope reads as a device, not pure materials or electronics →

Missing reproducibility, process detail, or yield data

The fourth pattern shows up at the reviewer stage and is reporting that a competent group could not reproduce. Fabrication described as "standard photolithography" with no mask dimensions, deposition with no parameters, etch with no recipe, and no statement of device-to-device variation or yield. In a device journal, reproducibility is part of soundness: a result that cannot be rebuilt is not a result.

The testable version: hand your Materials and Methods to a colleague who builds similar devices and ask whether they could fabricate yours from the text alone, and whether they could tell how many devices you made and how many worked. If the answer to either is no, supply the process table, the parameter set, and the yield or variation data in the methods or supplementary files before submission.

Each of these is something you can check against your own draft before you commit the submission. This guide tells you what Micromachines editors and reviewers look for; the review tells you whether YOUR paper passes the scope-and-soundness bar before you upload. We have reviewed manuscripts targeting micro/nano-device and sensor journals, including Micromachines and its open-access and selective peers.

Paid Manusights reviews include a 60-day money-back guarantee, and we do not train models on submitted manuscripts. Run a Micromachines submission package check to see whether your device framing, characterization depth, and declarations block will clear the MDPI pre-check.

Micromachines reports a median first decision near 17 days (16.8 days for papers published in the second half of 2025) and median acceptance-to-publication near 1.9 days. SciRev author reports describe a first review round of roughly one week, with reviewers noting the journal's high time pressure. Treat these as planning ranges, not promises: specialized MEMS, optofluidic, and microfabrication manuscripts can run longer because reviewer search takes time in narrow subfields.

• Day 0: Submission via SuSy. The portal accepts the package and routes it to the section editor for pre-check.

• Days 1 to 3: Editorial pre-check. The editor screens scope fit, section placement, integrity and plagiarism checks, image integrity, and basic soundness.

The fastest returns happen here, before any reviewer is invited.

• Days 3 to 7: Reviewer invitation. Manuscripts that pass pre-check enter single-blind reviewer search, typically targeting two or more reviewers in the relevant micro/nano subfield.

• Days 7 to 17: Peer review and first decision. Reviewer reports return and the editor issues the first decision, with a median near 17 days from submission.

Major revision is the most common outcome for papers that clear pre-check.

• Days 17 to 30: Revision and acceptance. Revisions are usually requested on a short clock; resubmission and a second review cycle commonly land acceptance inside a few weeks for in-scope, complete, well-characterized packages.

• **Days 30 to 32:

Production and publication.** Acceptance to publication runs near 1.9 days at median, so the slow part of the calendar is reviewer search and revision, not production.

This guide was researched and built from primary sources: the sources we checked include the Micromachines Instructions for Authors, the journal's aims-and-scope, sections, and editorial-process pages, MDPI's research and publication ethics policy, SciRev author-reported review experiences, and Manusights pre-submission review patterns from micro/nano-device manuscripts deciding between Micromachines and peer micro/nano-device journals. We reviewed and compared current MDPI author guidance with recent Manusights work reviews from authors weighing Micromachines, Lab on a Chip, Microsystems & Nanoengineering, the Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, and Sensors and Actuators A: Physical. Last reviewed by the Manusights engineering editorial team on 2026-06-07.

Source limitations: MDPI can update the APC, article-format details, abstract guidance, and editorial-process numbers after this review date, and APC figures in particular have been reported in a range (near CHF 2,100 historically, CHF 2,600 for 2026), so verify final administrative details against the official Micromachines author pages before upload. Median timelines are reported by the journal and vary by subfield. Use this guide for the decision the official instructions cannot answer: whether your device framing, characterization depth, and reproducibility package are ready for the MDPI pre-check.

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Before you upload, run your manuscript through a Micromachines submission readiness check to catch the device-scope, characterization, and reproducibility gaps the MDPI pre-check filters for. The check is free to run (/ai-review) and takes a single upload.