My term as founding editor of Advances in Optics and Photonics comes to an end on December 31, 2013. I am most pleased that the idea of a new journal of long reviews and serious tutorials, which was conceived in 2008, has come to maturation and has become a useful forum for such papers. I am also delighted that Dr. Govind Agrawal will be the next Editor, and I trust that the journal under his leadership will continue to attract contributions from outstanding authors.

It is reassuring that AOP is now approved for indexing in Thomson Reuter’s Web of Science. The indexing will include all papers beginning in Volume 1 and should appear in the database soon. I am expecting that the journal’s impact factor will be high, and I look forward to seeing the actual statistics.

Since its first volume in 2009, AOP has published 45 reviews and tutorials in five volumes. The average length of articles is approximately 58 pages, and the rate of downloads has been high. The journal has established a balance between reviews and tutorials and has spanned both fundamental and applied topics. The scope has been broad, covering all of the topics published in OSA’s entire menu of journals.

I take this opportunity to thank the OSA staff for their excellent support, the AOP Advisory Board for assistance in identifying authors and topics, my colleagues in the OSA Board of Editors and Publications Council for their encouragement and ideas, and the authors for their contributions.

I wish the new editor, Dr. Agrawal, full success in leading AOP into its new phase.