A study of collaboration in laser science and technology

An analysis of 3174 papers published in journals in the field of laserscience and technology indicate that only 401 papers were single authoredand the rest 2773 were co-authored papers. Of the 2773 papers, only 687 werewritten in local (inter-departmental), domestic (inter-institutional) andinternational collaboration. As reflected by the values of collaborative coefficientand co-authorship index, it is observed that the proportion of mega-authoredpapers for Japan, France, Italy, and the Netherlands was more, while for Canada,China, and Australia the proportion of single authored papers was more. Mostof the collaborative papers had bilateral domestic and international collaboration.Domestic collaborations were higher for USA, Japan, France and Australia,while international collaboration was higher for China, Israel, the Netherlands,and Switzerland. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.