--- name: advanced-functional-materials description: Use when targeting Advanced Functional Materials (Adv. Funct. Mater.) or deciding whether a functional-materials manuscript fits this high-impact Wiley venue. Encodes the journal's fit, framing, method-and-evidence bar, house style, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics. --- # Advanced Functional Materials (advanced-functional-materials) ## Journal positioning Advanced Functional Materials is a Wiley journal in the Advanced family and the functional-materials sister of Advanced Materials. Its defining character is primary research on materials whose value is defined by a function and an application: electronic, optoelectronic, photonic, magnetic, energy, biomedical, sensing, soft-robotic, and structural materials where the design of structure or composition delivers a specific, demonstrated capability. The journal rewards work that links materials design and mechanism to device-level or application-level performance, with the emphasis on the functional property rather than on a new bulk material per se. It is positioned just below Advanced Materials in scope breadth but shares its rigor and device orientation, expecting a clear structure-function-application chain. Readership spans materials chemistry, condensed-matter physics, device engineering, and applied nanoscience. This skill is a **fit / venue-selection / re-framing** tool. It does not replace the journal's current official submission guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live author instructions on the Advanced Functional Materials Wiley site. ## When to trigger - The author names Advanced Functional Materials as the target for primary research on a functional material with a clear device or application emphasis. - A manuscript demonstrates a functional property (electronic, optical, magnetic, mechanical, biomedical, sensing) enabled by materials design, and the author is choosing between this venue and Advanced Materials, Nature Materials, or Matter. - A paper sits between a broadly significant materials breakthrough (Advanced Materials) and an application-specific result, and the author needs to decide where it fits. - The author needs the journal's structure-function-application bar, house style, and desk-reject criteria before submission. ## Scope & topic fit - Electronic and optoelectronic materials and devices: semiconductors, transistors, LEDs, photodetectors, memristors, flexible and printed electronics where a materials advance drives device function. - Energy-related functional materials with a device emphasis (storage, conversion, harvesting) where the functional property, not only the energy metric, is central. - Photonic, plasmonic, and optical materials: metamaterials, light emitters, nonlinear and quantum-optical materials with demonstrated function. - Magnetic, spintronic, and quantum materials where a designed structure yields a target functional response. - Biomedical, bioelectronic, and biointerface materials: drug delivery, tissue scaffolds, biosensors, implantable and wearable devices. - Soft, stimuli-responsive, sensing, and actuating materials: hydrogels, soft robotics, e-skin, and adaptive surfaces with quantified functional performance. ## Method & evidence bar - The functional property and its application context must be stated in one or two sentences; a paper that synthesizes a material without demonstrating and quantifying its function is misfit. - The structure-function relationship must be established: characterization that connects composition/structure/processing to the measured functional property, not correlation alone. - Functional and device performance must be quantified with conditions and uncertainty, and benchmarked against relevant state-of-the-art literature where a performance claim is made. - Device or application demonstrations should follow field-appropriate testing protocols; stability, reproducibility across devices, and operating-condition robustness are expected for frontier claims. - Mechanistic understanding of why the material delivers the function is expected; phenomenological performance alone is generally insufficient. - Data and characterization supporting key claims should be available per Wiley/journal policy and reproducible from the reported parameters. ## Structure & house style - Advanced Functional Materials uses the Advanced-family format; Full Papers, Communications, and Reviews are typical article types — re-check current types and limits on the live site. - The introduction concisely frames the functional gap and the application motivation; background is minimal because the readership is expert, and the advance is stated early. - Figures must be efficient and quantitative: each carries a key structure-function or device-performance result, with comparisons that situate the work against the literature. - A comprehensive Supporting Information carries full synthesis, characterization, device fabrication, and supplementary functional data. - The Experimental Section must enable replication: synthesis, device/sample fabrication, measurement setups, and characterization parameters. - Claims of superior function or performance must be supported by an explicit benchmark table or comparison to state of the art. ## Official-submission checklist - Before giving submission-ready advice, read `../../resources/source-basis.md` and `../../resources/official-source-map.md`; start from the official source anchors for this journal family, then cite the current journal-specific page you checked. - Search the live site for "Advanced Functional Materials author guidelines" and follow the current Wiley version. - Re-check current article types, word/figure limits, and abstract format; confirm Experimental Section and Supporting Information conventions. - Re-check data-availability and characterization-reporting requirements; confirm device-testing expectations for the relevant application area. - Re-check competing-interests, funding, and AI-use disclosure requirements; confirm preprint policy (ChemRxiv/arXiv posting compatibility). - If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win. ## Pre-submission self-check - [ ] One sentence — the functional property, the application it serves, and the materials design that enables it. - [ ] The structure-function relationship is established with characterization, not inferred from performance alone. - [ ] Functional/device performance is quantified with conditions, uncertainty, and a benchmark against the relevant literature. - [ ] Device or application demonstrations follow field-appropriate protocols with stability and reproducibility evidence. - [ ] Mechanistic understanding explains why the material delivers the function. - [ ] The paper is positioned against recent Advanced Functional Materials / Advanced Materials / Nature Materials work in this area. ## Common desk-reject triggers - A materials synthesis paper with no demonstrated, quantified function or application relevance. - A device or performance result with no structure-function understanding of why the material works. - Functional performance reported without conditions or without comparison to relevant state-of-the-art literature. - A frontier functional claim lacking reproducibility across devices or operating-condition robustness. - Incremental property tuning with no mechanistic insight or application advance. ## Re-routing decision - A broadly significant, paradigm-shifting materials advance with wide cross-field impact: `advanced-materials`. - A fundamental materials-science discovery emphasizing new physics/chemistry of the material itself: `nature-materials`. - An application-driven materials-for-impact study (energy, sustainability, devices) with a systems framing: `matter`. - If the functional advance is energy-specific with device/system metrics central: an energy-materials venue (`advanced-energy-materials`). ## Output format ```text [Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason) [Target] Advanced Functional Materials [Topic tags] <2–3 closest topics> [Method/evidence] [Top risk] [Official items to re-check]
[Re-route suggestion] ```