Ultra-short silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) modulator for bidirectional polarization-independent operation

We propose a bidirectional, polarization-independent, recirculating IQ-modulator scheme based on the silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) platform. We demonstrate the viability of the concept by using an SOH Mach-Zehnder modulator, operated at 10 GBd BPSK and 2ASK-2PSK

Optical interconnect with densely integrated plasmonic modulator and germanium photodetector arrays

We demonstrate the first chip-to-chip interconnect utilizing a densely integrated plasmonic Mach-Zehnder modulator array operating at 3 x 10 Gbit/s. A multicore fiber provides a compact optical interface, while the receiver consists of germanium photodetectors

Silicon-Organic Hybrid (SOH) and Plasmonic-Organic Hybrid (POH) integration

Silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) and plasmonic-organic hybrid (POH) integration combines organic clectro-optic materials with silicon photonic and plasmonic waveguides, The concept enables fast and power-efficient modulators that support advanced modulation formats such as QPSK and 16QAM

Control intervention design for preclinical and clinical trials: Consensus-based core recommendations from the third Stroke Recovery and Rehabilitation Roundtable

Control comparator selection is a critical trial design issue. Preclinical and clinical investigators who are doing trials of stroke recovery and rehabilitation interventions must carefully consider the appropriateness and relevance of their chosen control comparator as the benefit of an experimental intervention is established relative to a comparator. Establishing a strong rationale for a selected comparator improves the integrity of the trial and validity of its findings. This Stroke Recovery and Rehabilitation Roundtable (SRRR) taskforce used a graph theory voting system to rank the importance and ease of addressing challenges during control comparator design. “Identifying appropriate type of control” was ranked easy to address and very important, “variability in usual care” was ranked hard to address and of low importance, and “understanding the content of the control and how it differs from the experimental intervention” was ranked very important but not easy to address. The CONtrol DeSIGN (CONSIGN) decision support tool was developed to address the identified challenges and enhance comparator selection, description, and reporting. CONSIGN is a web-based tool inclusive of seven steps that guide the user through control comparator design. The tool was refined through multiple rounds of pilot testing that included more than 130 people working in neurorehabilitation research. Four hypothetical exemplar trials, which span preclinical, mood, aphasia, and motor recovery, demonstrate how the tool can be applied in practice. Six consensus recommendations are defined that span research domains, professional disciplines, and international borders

Femtojoule electro-optic modulation using a silicon-organic hybrid device

Energy-efficient electro-optic modulators are at the heart of short-reach optical interconnects, and silicon photonics is considered the leading technology for realizing such devices. However, the performance of all-silicon devices is limited by intrinsic material properties. In particular, the absence of linear electro-optic effects in silicon renders the integration of energy-efficient photonic-electronic interfaces challenging. Silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) integration can overcome these limitations by combining nanophotonic silicon waveguides with organic cladding materials, thereby offering the prospect of designing optical properties by molecular engineering. In this paper, we demonstrate an SOH Mach-Zehnder modulator with unprecedented efficiency: the 1-mm-long device consumes only 0.7 fJ bit(-1) to generate a 12.5 Gbit s(-1) data stream with a bit-error ratio below the threshold for hard-decision forward-error correction. This power consumption represents the lowest value demonstrated for a non-resonant Mach-Zehnder modulator in any material system. It is enabled by a novel class of organic electro-optic materials that are designed for high chromophore density and enhanced molecular orientation. The device features an electro-optic coefficient of r(33) approximate to 180 pm V-1 and can be operated at data rates of up to 40 Gbit s(-1)

Integrated silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) frequency shifter

We demonstrate a waveguide-based frequency shifter on the silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) platform, enabling frequency shifts up to 10 GHz. Spurious side-modes are suppressed by more than 23 dB using temporal shaping of the drive signal

Autism as a disorder of neural information processing: directions for research and targets for therapy

The broad variation in phenotypes and severities within autism spectrum disorders suggests the involvement of multiple predisposing factors, interacting in complex ways with normal developmental courses and gradients. Identification of these factors, and the common developmental path into which theyfeed, is hampered bythe large degrees of convergence from causal factors to altered brain development, and divergence from abnormal brain development into altered cognition and behaviour. Genetic, neurochemical, neuroimaging and behavioural findings on autism, as well as studies of normal development and of genetic syndromes that share symptoms with autism, offer hypotheses as to the nature of causal factors and their possible effects on the structure and dynamics of neural systems. Such alterations in neural properties may in turn perturb activity-dependent development, giving rise to a complex behavioural syndrome many steps removed from the root causes. Animal models based on genetic, neurochemical, neurophysiological, and behavioural manipulations offer the possibility of exploring these developmental processes in detail, as do human studies addressing endophenotypes beyond the diagnosis itself