Introduction: A highly cited paper (HCP) is considered a landmark that can influence both research and clinical practice. The characteristics of HCPs in avascular necrosis of the femoral head (AVNFH) were identified and the research status was explored in a scientometric analysis. Methods: The present bibliometric analysis were based on the Scopus database from 1991 to 2021. Microsoft Excel and VOSviewer were used for co-authorship, co-citation, and co-occurrence analysis. From 8496 papers, only 2.9% (244) were HCPs, with 200.8 citations registered per article. Results: Of the HCPs, 11.9% and 12.3% were externally funded and had international collaboration, respectively. These were published in 84 journals by 1625 authors from 425 organizations of 33 countries. The USA, Japan, Switzerland, and Israel were the leading countries.The lead research organizations were Sinai Hospital and John Hopkins University (USA). The most impactful organizations were University of Arkansas for Medical Science, and Good Samaritan Hospital (USA). R.A. Mont (USA) and K.H. Koo (South Korea) were the most prolific contributing authors, while R. Ganz (Switzerland) and R.S. Weinstein (USA) registered the most impactful contributions. The most prolific publishing journal was the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. Conclusion: The HCPs contributed to the knowledge of AVNFH by examining research perspectives and identifying important subareas through keyword analysis. Level of evidence: Not applicable. Trial registration: Not applicable.

The study examines global “Quantum Cryptography” research on a set of quantitative and qualitative metrics to understand the status of research in the subject at global, national, institutional, and individual level. The analysis is based on publications data in the subject comprising a total of 10801 publications as indexed in the Scopus database covering the period 1992–2020. The study provides a window to most productive countries, research organizations and authors in the subject, to most popular broad subject areas in research, to top modes of research communication, and in addition it describes the characteristics of highly cited papers. The study maps the most productive countries, organizations, authors, and keywords in the context of collaborative research. The quantum cryptography research registered a 24.76% annual average growth, accrued an average of 23.01 citations per paper (CPP) since their publication, and it contributed a 4.03% of its output as highly cited papers, with an average of 305.46 citations per paper since their publication. Scholarly journals accounted for a 59.61% global publications share. Nearly 29% of the total output on “Quantum Cryptography” resulted from projects funded by 100+ national and international funding agencies.