Research Guides: Physics: Find Articles

Databases and Servers

Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is a Digital Library portal for researchers in Astronomy and Physics, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) under a NASA cooperative agreement. The ADS maintains more than 8.7 million bibliographic records and full-text scans of astronomical literature.

High-Energy Physics Literature Database (InspireHEP)
Previously known as SPIRES, it serves as a one-stop information platform for HEP community, comprising 8 interlinked databases on literature, conferences, institutions, journals, researchers, experiments, jobs and data. Run in collaboration by CERN, DESY, Fermilab, IHEP, IN2P3, and SLAC.
UMD Technical Reports Center
A U.S. Government Document Depository Library for scientific and technical reports from several agencies and houses one of the most complete collections of NASA documents in the country, as well as reports from NASA's predecessor, NACA, dating back to 1915.

MathSciNet
Consists of reviews and citations to the world's research literature in mathematics and related areas compiled from: Mathematical reviews, and: Current mathematical publications, 1940-
Web of Science
Includes: over 5,000 journals in physics and other basic and applied science fields, going back to 1900. Includes "Cited Reference Search" to track research forward.
Scopus
Abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, with bibliometrics tools to track, analyze and visualize research. It contains over 22,000 titles from more than 5,000 publishers around the world, covering the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and Arts & Humanities. Scopus has 55 million records dating back to 1823, 84% of these contain references dating from 1996.
IEEE Xplore
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Provides full-text access to IEEE transactions, journals, magazines, and conference proceedings published since 1988, and more than 3,400 technical standards.
ProQuest Science Journals
Provides access to abstracts and periodicals in science, engineering, and technology in full-text and image formats. Covers a wide range of topics from both physical and life science disciplines. Provides a full-text linking destination for ProQuest's versions of Applied science & technology abstracts and General science abstracts.

SciX (Beta)
The Science Explorer (SciX) is a NASA/SAO digital library portal for researchers in astronomy, earth science, heliophysics, physics, and planetary science. The four bibliographic collections maintained by SciX cover astronomy (including astrophysics, heliophysics, and planetary science), physics, earth science, and general science. Overall the system contains over 20 million records covering refereed publications plus all arXiv, ESS Open Archive, and EarthArXiv preprints. It launched publicly in 2023, and is still in beta as of 2024. This is an expansion of the Astrophysics Data System (ADS).

arXiv.org e-print archive
An e-print (electronic preprint) service in the fields of physics (including astrophysics), mathematics, non-linear science, computer science, quantitative biology and statistics.

CERN Document Server
The CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) document server allows searching (and access) to preprints, as well as theses, reports, published articles, archives, and more. Allows multisearch with CERN Indico, KISS, and SPIRES.
PhysDoc (Physics Documents Worldwide)
This web site offers a basic index to preprints, research reports, annual administrative reports, and other materials available on the websites of organizations and individuals worldwide. International focus.
Optica Open
Preprint server through the Optica Publishing Group that hosts submissions dedicated to advancing optics and photonics. Launched in January 2023.

Tutorial: Accessing the Full Text of an Article
Check out this 15-20 minute tutorial that will walk you through the different ways to access the full text of an article through the Dartmouth Libraries.
Off Campus Access
Are you off campus and having trouble accessing a resource? Check out our page for help regarding off-campus access.
Browser extension LibKey Nomad
Check out our guide for adding the browser extension LibKey Nomad. It can provide direct linking to full-text resources available in our library's collection!

Did you know that you can request items that the library doesn't own?

Interlibrary Loan
Dartmouth's Interlibrary Loan system. Request books, chapters, articles, -- anything Dartmouth doesn't own and we'll borrow it from another library for you.
BorrowDirect
Request books (only) from a small, but strong, group of libraries (the Ivies). Often the fastest option for getting books that Dartmouth doesn't own, or that are missing or checked out.

American Institute of Physics (AIP)
In addition to the journals linked to above, the AIP also publishes Physics Today, and the volumnious AIP Conference Proceedings. The AIP has also partnered with the APS (see below) to publish the "Virtual Journals in Science and Technology", consisting of collections of current articles from numerous publication sources in specific subfields of physics.
American Physical Society (APS)
Access APS journal content (archival through 2005 - titles include "Physical Review A", "Physical Review B", "Reviews of Modern Physics", etc...) through PROLA (Physical Review Online Archive). The APS also produces the online "Physical Review Focus", offering short explanations for the non-specialist of the material presented in selected Physical Review articles, written by science writers.
Institute of Physics (IOP)
Titles include: EPL, New Journal of Physics (OA), Physica Scripta, Physics-Uspekhi, etc.
ScienceDirect (from Elsevier)
Physics and Astronomy subject browsing.

PhySH - Physics Subject Headings
PhySH (Physics Subject Headings) is a physics classification scheme developed by the American Physical Society (APS) to organize journal, meeting, and other content by topic. PhySH is a fully open detailed classification scheme for physics. It was initially developed to meet the specific goals of the APS for journal, meeting, and other content; it is also available for use by the broader community. It has replaced PACS.
PACS
PACS, is no longer being updated as of 2010 and has been replaced by PhySH. The Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme® (PACS®) is a hierarchical subject classification scheme designed to classify and categorize the literature of physics and astronomy.