[Mitch]

My first story for C&EN.

Citations are often used to measure quality in the chemical literature. C&EN, in collaboration with Chemical Abstracts Service, has tabulated the most cited chemistry work published in the past decade (2004–14), and here are the top five. Although there are not many surprises on the list, the senior author of the second-most-cited paper, Hideo Hosono, never expected his paper to garner so much attention over the years. The Tokyo Institute of Technology materials scientist attributes the high citation rate to a massive increase in interest in iron-based superconductors: More than 15,000 papers have been published in the field since his seminal 2008 article, he says. In his words, “I believe iron will remain a hot topic in materials research for years to come.”

See chart at: The Most Cited Chemistry Papers Published, 2004–14

[Arkcon]

Interesting ... the most cited chemistry papers are seminal works on graphene.  You'd think we be getting more kids on these forums asking about graphene.  We get some, but not as many as I'd expect if it were as hot a topic.

I remember back in my day, one paper was cited every time.  The original Lowery assay for protein : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowry_protein_assay  Do check out the Wikipedia page, it is listed in the references as the most cited paper in publishing history.  I actually had to go see my university's copy.  The bound collections of that journal were old looking, like all documents that are that old, except for that paper.  It was much yellower, and even stained and notes written on.  I guess, in 60 years, a lot can happen to an article.

[Mitch]

If I included review articles. Graphene would have dominated the top 5.

[discodermolide]

What does it look like for the last 4 years? Say 2009-2013 (I guess the numbers are not complete for 2014 yet).

[curiouscat]

What's so special in that DFT paper & what's the new algorithm for simulations?

Those were the surprise entries for me.

[Mitch]

What's so special in that DFT paper & what's the new algorithm for simulations?

Those were the surprise entries for me.

The M06 basis set was defined. It is popular among organic chemists when they do their modeling.

[curiouscat]

What's so special in that DFT paper & what's the new algorithm for simulations?

Those were the surprise entries for me.

The M06 basis set was defined. It is popular among organic chemists when they do their modeling.

Personally I'm cynical. Having done DFT there's definitely no dearth of methodological variants. The problem always has been too much forking and proliferation of too many codes, functionals correlations etc.