How can revivals of scientific publications be explained using bibliometric methods? A case study discovering booster papers for the 1985 Physics Nobel Prize paper

• Published in: Scientometrics Vol. 129; no. 2; pp. 1079 - 1095
• Main Authors: Haunschild, Robin, Marx, Werner, Weis, Jürgen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01.02.2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Bibliometrics; Computer Science; Information Storage and Retrieval; Library Science; Nobel prizes; Physics; Spectroscopy; Topological insulators; 1985 Physics Nobel Prize paper; Quantum Hall effect; Booster paper; Bibliometrics; RPYS
• ISSN: 0138-9130; 1588-2861
• DOI: 10.1007/s11192-023-04906-z

The unusual citation profile of the 1985 Physics Nobel Prize paper has been analyzed. The number of citing papers per year exhibits a maximum of 123 citations in the mid-1980s and increases to more than 200 citations about two decades later. The publication set of the citing papers was analyzed in terms of co-authorships and research topics. The USA and (more recently) the People’s Republic of China appear prominently among the countries of the citing authors. A keyword analysis of the citing papers revealed research dealing with topological insulators as one of the major newly evolving research topics. An analysis of the co-cited papers has been performed via reference publication year spectroscopy (RPYS). The most-frequently co-cited papers (the peak papers of the RPYS spectrogram) were identified and discussed. As a result, we found two primary booster papers and three secondary booster papers that renewed the interest in the 1985 Physics Nobel Prize paper.