## 2 Materials and Methods
### Experimental Design of Trichoderma Irradiation with Blue-Violet-Light Laser  
The samples were subjected to blue-violet-light laser irradiation (400 nm) using a MDL-III-400-300 mW (PSU-III-FDA) diode laser with optic fiber, with power variation between 0 and 100%. The MDL-III-400-300 mW system was bought from Changchun NewIndustries Optoelectronics Tech. Co., Ltd., No.888 Jinhu Road, High-Tech Zone, Changchun, China CNI. The RMS stability as declared by the manufacturer is 2%, measured over a 4 h period after the initial warm-up phase. Additionally, the laser manufacturer declares that the transversal spatial profile of the laser is near TEM\({}_{00}\). The laser came with a calibration curve of the optical average power at the beam radiation's exit from the laser source as a function of the pump electrical current. It is known that any additional connection along the path of the laser beam leads to a decrease in power. In order to measure the optical average power at the exit from the beam expander, a Coherent PM2 measuring sensor with a useful surface with a diameter of 19 mm was used. It was necessary to adjust the distance between the sensor and the autocollimator so that all the laser radiation reaches the useful surface of the sensor. It can be seen that in the case of the 400 nm laser, around 50% of its power is lost both through the optical fiber coupling and the beam expander (Appendix A). Irradiation was carried out at a pump electrical current of 151 mA, which generated an optical average power of 81 mW (with the beam expander). At a distance of 10 cm from the beam expander, the beam completely illuminated the base of the 100 mL Erlenmeyer flask, which had a diameter of 5.5 cm. Since the beam direction was normal to the surface holding the flask, the beam was circle-like, not elliptical-like. Since the beam size had the same diameter as the Erlenmeyer flask (as measured with a ruler from different directions), the optical intensity at the base of the flask was calculated to be 3.4 \(\pm\) 0.2 mW/cm\({}^{2}\). The optical intensity and its associated uncertainty (expressed in terms of relative experimental error) are presented in Table 1, showing the size of the measured beam at different distances from the expanded beam source. The mean relative experimental error for the beam diameter was estimated to be 5.1% with respect to the function obtained via linear regression for the beam diameter as a function of the distance from the source (Appendix B). Due to error propagation, the beam area at different distances from the source had a relative experimental error of 7.2% with its values calculated considering that the beam is circular in all cases, as is shown in Table 1. Since the relative error of the average optical power can be estimated from the RMS stability value declared via the producer of 2%, the associated uncertainty of the optical intensity is 7.5% through propagation of errors. Two irradiation times were considered. Based on a definition previously proposed in the literature [33], the irradiation dose was defined as the optical intensity multiplied by the irradiation time, which was expressed in units of energy per area (mJ/cm\({}^{2}\)). Thus, for an irradiation time of 60 s the irradiation dose at the base of the flasks was 204.5 \(\pm\) 15.3 mJ/cm\({}^{2}\). Similarly, when the irradiation time was 300 s, the irradiation dose was 1023 \(\pm\) 76.7 mJ/cm\({}^{2}\). The calculated values also express the uncertainty associated with the optical intensity. The flasks were manipulated aseptically in the presence of a Bunsen burner flame. The irradiation took place in a specially designed box in the dark. In order to maintain the sterility of the medium, and also to ensure uniform irradiation, a glass lens BK7 (EKSMA Optics, Vilnius, Lithuania) functioning as an optical window was placed at the open ends of the flasks. The first irradiation of samples using the two different intensities of laser light was performed 4 h after incubation of the fungal strain with the rice husks. The samples