These journals publish over 2000 articles per year,[2] making it one of the largest international publications in condensed matter physics.

Shortly after the journal was founded, the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 exacerbated the distances between scientists from the Eastern and Western blocs.

Throughout the Cold War Physica Status Solidi maintained political independence and English as publication language and, as such, it became a major platform for the scientists behind the Iron Curtain to disseminate their results in the Western world (and vice versa) and thus a forum of international exchange for scientists from the East and the West.

[5][6][7] In 2003, series C (Current Topics in Solid State Physics) was created to accommodate the publication of conference proceedings.

A fourth series, RRL (Rapid Research Letters), was launched in 2007 to publish short articles of broader and immediate interest to the solid state physics and materials science community.