Thick waveguides of low-stress stoichiometric silicon nitride on sapphire (SiNOS).

Low-stress stoichiometric silicon nitride (SiN) waveguides with an unprecedented thickness of up to 1350 nm and a width in the range of 2.2 - 2.7 µm are fabricated using a single LPCVD step on sapphire substrates (SiNOS).

Femtosecond pulse amplification on a chip.

Femtosecond laser pulses enable the synthesis of light across the electromagnetic spectrum and provide access to ultrafast phenomena in physics, biology, and chemistry. Chip-integration of femtosecond technology could revolutionize applications such as point-of-care diagnostics, bio-medical imaging, portable chemical sensing, or autonomous navigation. However, current chip-integrated pulse sources lack the required peak power, and on-chip amplification of femtosecond pulses has been an unresolved challenge.

High on-chip gain spiral AlO:Er waveguide amplifiers.

We demonstrate reactively sputtered AlO:Er waveguide amplifiers with an erbium concentration of 3.9 × 10 ions/cm, capable of achieving over 30 dB small signal net gain at 1532 nm using bidirectional pumping at 1480 nm. We observe on chip output powers of 10.

Safety and efficacy of the two doses conjugated protein-based SOBERANA-02 COVID-19 vaccine and of a heterologous three-dose combination with SOBERANA-Plus: a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled phase 3 clinical trial.

Background: SOBERANA-02 is a COVID-19 conjugate vaccine (recombinant RBD conjugated to tetanus toxoid). Phases 1/2 clinical trials demonstrated high immunogenicity, promoting neutralising IgG and specific T-cell response. A third heterologous dose of SOBERANA-Plus (RBD-dimer) further increased neutralising antibodies.

Modular microring laser cavity sensor.

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a modular microring laser (MML) cavity for sensing applications. The proposed MML permits much more design freedom compared with a traditional simple ring cavity by decoupling the performance parameters into several regions in the cavity. Thus, the different biosensor performance parameters can be optimized semi-independently limiting the need for trade-offs on the design of the biosensing device.