An Integrated Photonic Biosensing Platform for Pathogen Detection in Aquaculture.

Aquaculture is expected to play a vital role in solving the challenge of sustainably providing the growing world population with healthy and nutritious food. Pathogen outbreaks are a major risk for the sector, so early detection and a timely response are crucial. This can be enabled by monitoring the pathogen levels in aquaculture facilities.

Asymmetric Mach-Zehnder Interferometric Biosensing for Quantitative and Sensitive Multiplex Detection of Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies in Human Plasma.

The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has once more emphasized the urgent need for accurate and fast point-of-care (POC) diagnostics for outbreak control and prevention. The main challenge in the development of POC in vitro diagnostics (IVD) is to combine a short time to result with a high sensitivity, and to keep the testing cost-effective. In this respect, sensors based on photonic integrated circuits (PICs) may offer advantages as they have features such as a high analytical sensitivity, capability for multiplexing, ease of miniaturization, and the potential for high-volume manufacturing.

Plasmonic Au islands on polymer nanopillars.

The refractive index sensitivity of localized surface plasmon resonance sensors can be improved by placing the plasmonic metal particles on pillars instead of on a planar substrate. In this paper, a simple and versatile colloidal lithography method for the fabrication of plasmonic Au islands on top of polymer nanopillars is described. The pillar height is controlled by varying the thickness of the initial polymer film.

Long-range depletion forces induced by associating small molecules.

This is the first report of experimental observations of depletion interactions in solutions of a (hydrogen-bonded) reversible supramolecular polymer. Depletion forces were measured directly by colloidal probe atomic force microscopy. The range of the depletion force is consistent with existing independent experimental data.