ADVANCED MATERIALS

Submission on June 14th.
Major revision on July 12th, with three reviewers. One rejection, one major revision, and one minor revision. Editor requested major revision.
Revised on July 18th.
Rejection on August 8th. Rejection included 6 questions. The other two reviewers had no issues. Editor rejected the paper.
Appeal on August 8th. Responded to all 6 questions in an email and appealed to the editor.
Accepted on August 9th. Email stated to wait for further information.
Major revision on August 17th. Editor requested major revisions.
Revised on August 20th, reorganized the "respond to reviewers" file and refined the section on the mechanism of the article.
Accepted on September 5th, at around 3:20 PM. Editor sent the paper to the original reviewers and a new reviewer (reviewer number 4) who all accepted without any objections.
Reflection: Overall, I feel very fortunate. I am an independent PI in a small research group and have been working hard in scientific research since the beginning of last year. Leading by example, I have pursued excellence with my students and have gradually published a series of absorber articles (AM, AFM, AS, SMALL, et al.). It has not been easy, often staying up late to revise articles and pondering over questions from reviewers that my students couldn't answer. I have lost a lot of hair and have been constantly frustrated. Yesterday, I finally broke through the ceiling of my research group and continue to strive for high-level scientific research. I am grateful for the reviewers' questions, which greatly improved our article. I also extend my gratitude to the editor for their tolerance, which allowed us to publish our first AM article on controllable gel-based absorbers.

1.27 submission
2.21 major revision, three reviewers, one top 5% (major revision), one top 30% (minor revision), one suggested transfer to AIS, editor assigned major revision.
4.03 revised
4.15 minor revision, not sent to the reviewer for transfer, the first reviewer is very satisfied and recommends direct publication, the second reviewer raises a question that we missed in the first round, which made him a little angry.
4.17 return for minor revision
4.19 editor accepts directly
Overall, very lucky. We are a small research group from non-prestigious schools and have never had an article with an impact factor of more than 10. As mentioned before, AM looks at connections, if the connections are not good, it's difficult to get published. However, the fact proves that as long as the article has strong innovative points, the editor will still like it. During the submission process, there was a clear sense of favoritism from the editor towards the article. Everyone, keep up the good work.