High power and narrow linewidth, from a new semiconductor architecture.
SELA Photonics is developing membrane external-cavity laser systems for defense, quantum, and precision sensing — applications where output power, spectral purity, and wavelength must coexist.
The membrane external-cavity architecture, first demonstrated by SELA’s co-founder at the University of New Mexico.
Tens of watts of continuous-wave output, achieved in the founders’ own UNM research.
The first SELA application-specific demonstrator is in development now.
Where the architecture matters
Defense & space
Bright beacons, clean spectra
Adaptive optics, remote sensing, and space domain awareness need watts of single-frequency light at wavelengths the atmosphere and the physics dictate — not the wavelengths diode catalogs happen to offer.
Quantum
Atoms don't negotiate
Cooling, trapping, and interrogating atoms and ions demands specific wavelengths at high spectral purity. Today that often means chains of amplifiers and conversion stages where one engineered source should do.
Sensing & metrology
Reaching closed bands
Spectroscopy and ranging benefit from tunable, narrow-linewidth sources in spectral regions that conventional semiconductor laser designs cannot reach.
From demonstrated architecture to deployable systems
First demonstrated at the University of New Mexico in 2015, the membrane external-cavity architecture has been advanced to tens of watts of continuous-wave output by SELA’s founders and their UNM research group. SELA is translating that published foundation — the founders’ own work — into wavelength-engineered, narrow-linewidth laser systems for demanding scientific and industrial applications.
Explore the architecture →The team
Founded by the co-inventor of the MECSEL architecture and the director of UNM’s Ultrafast and Quantum Photonics Laboratory — direct ownership of the underlying technology, high-power semiconductor-laser development, nonlinear optics, and quantum photonics.
Meet the team →Remove the mirror. Keep the gain.
The membrane external-cavity surface-emitting laser, and why deleting one component changes what semiconductor lasers can do.
The constraint
The gain chip in a conventional external-cavity semiconductor laser carries its own Bragg mirror — typically some forty alternating crystal layers, grown into the semiconductor itself. That mirror constrains everything around it: which wavelengths are reachable, because the mirror must be growable in a compatible material; how heat leaves the device, because every watt must cross the mirror stack; and how the optical field sits relative to the gain, because the mirror pins its phase.
Removing it
In 2015, researchers at the University of New Mexico first demonstrated that the mirror could simply be removed — leaving a micron-thin gain membrane, cooled through transparent windows and mirrored externally. Devices of this kind are now generally known as MECSELs. The heat path shortens from forty layers to one; the gain material is chosen for the application rather than for mirror compatibility; and the external cavity gives direct control over the spectrum.
What that buys
Heat leaves through the membrane's faces instead of crossing a mirror stack. The founders’ own work at UNM has demonstrated tens of watts of continuous-wave output on this architecture.
With no mirror to grow, the gain material is chosen for the application — opening spectral regions where good integrated mirrors cannot be made at all.
The external cavity gives direct control of the emission spectrum, supporting narrow-linewidth operation while power scales.
SELA Photonics, a University of New Mexico spin-out, is commercializing this architecture under an exclusive option to the underlying patent portfolio from UNM Rainforest Innovations. The platform’s native near-infrared output extends into the visible through intracavity frequency conversion — the route demonstrated in the published guide-star work. The specific designs, materials, and processes we use are the subject of ongoing development and are not described here.
- Z. Yang, A. R. Albrecht, J. G. Cederberg, M. Sheik-Bahae, “Optically pumped DBR-free semiconductor disk lasers,” Optics Express 23, 33164 (2015).
- H. Kahle et al., “Semiconductor membrane external-cavity surface-emitting laser (MECSEL),” Optica 3, 1506 (2016).
- Z. Yang et al., “16 W DBR-free membrane semiconductor disk laser with dual-SiC heatspreader,” Electronics Letters 54, 430 (2018).
- D. Priante et al., “In-well pumping of a membrane external-cavity surface-emitting laser,” IEEE J. Sel. Top. Quantum Electron. (2021).
- D. Priante et al., “Demonstration of a 20-W membrane-external-cavity surface-emitting laser for sodium guide star applications,” Electronics Letters (2021).
- M. Zhang et al., “Frequency-stabilized high-power 589 nm semiconductor disk laser for guide star applications,” Advanced Solid State Lasers (2024).
- T. A. Rubin, C. L. Nguyen, G. D. Cole, H. Kahle, D. V. Seletskiy, A. R. Albrecht, “Optimization of a frequency-doubled MECSEL for on-sky tests as a laser guide-star,” Proc. SPIE 13911 (2026), doi:10.1117/12.3082576.
Where the architecture matters.
Three domains keep asking for the same demanding laser: high power, narrow linewidth, at a wavelength the physics dictates. These are the problems the membrane external-cavity architecture is built to address — and the systems SELA is developing to meet them.
Defense & space
Ground-based telescopes and space-domain-awareness systems correct for atmospheric turbulence by projecting an artificial beacon — a sodium guide star — onto the mesospheric sodium layer at 589 nm. The beacon is only as good as the laser behind it: it must deliver watts of continuous power in a linewidth narrow enough to address the sodium line, at a wavelength no catalog diode emits. SELA’s founders have demonstrated tens of watts aimed at exactly this problem in their UNM research — the foundation the company is now engineering into an application-specific system. Related needs — remote sensing, illumination, and beam-combining — make the same demands at other wavelengths.
Quantum technologies
Atoms and ions set the wavelength; the engineer has no vote. Cooling, trapping, and interrogating quantum systems — in clocks, sensors, and processors — requires single-frequency light at specific transitions, often at powers that force today's systems into chains of seed lasers, fiber amplifiers, and frequency-conversion stages. Each stage adds noise, cost, size, and a failure mode. A semiconductor source engineered directly for the transition collapses that chain — whether that transition is rubidium’s D₂ line at 780 nm, cesium’s at 852 nm, strontium’s blue cooling line at 461 nm, or the ultraviolet and visible lines that trapped-ion platforms require.
Sensing & metrology
Spectroscopy, gas sensing, and coherent ranging reward two things conventional semiconductor lasers struggle to combine: broad tunability and narrow instantaneous linewidth. The membrane architecture offers both — and reaches spectral bands where integrated-mirror designs cannot operate at all, because no adequate mirror can be grown in those material systems.
Working on a problem that needs power and spectral purity in the same package? Discuss a partnership →
Built by the people who know this laser best.
A University of New Mexico spin-out whose founders span the full arc of the technology — from the invention of the MECSEL architecture to the quantum applications it enables.
Founders
Chief Executive Officer
Denis Seletskiy
Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of New Mexico, where he directs the Ultrafast and Quantum Photonics (femtoQ) Laboratory. Trained in the Sheik-Bahae group at UNM, he returned in 2025 to lead the laboratory and carry its research lineage forward. He served as Lead Scientist of MIRAQLS, an EU Horizon Europe consortium on mid-infrared and quantum light sources (2023–2026), and is the author of 100+ publications and seven patents and disclosures spanning ultrafast and quantum photonics, frequency combs, and precision laser development.
Chief Technology Officer
Alexander Albrecht
Research faculty in Physics and Astronomy at the University of New Mexico, co-inventor of the MECSEL architecture, and technical lead of SELA’s device platform. He developed the MECSEL and its hybrid variant within the Sheik-Bahae program and is named on the issued patents and pending applications that underpin the company’s IP position; his expertise spans gain-chip design and quality control and the bonding and chip-transfer processes at the core of SELA’s manufacturing know-how. Principal investigator of MARBLE, a $7.5M AFOSR MURI program on athermal high-power laser architectures across four universities (2023–2025) — work directly continuous with the double-sided cooling at the heart of the MECSEL platform.
Advisory board
Advisor
Charles “Chuck” Call, Ph.D.
Founder and CTO of GridFlow, Inc. A serial entrepreneur and systems engineer with more than 25 years leading hard-tech product development and technology commercialization. He has co-founded and exited several startups — MesoSystems (bioaerosols), MesoFuel (hydrogen), and Edge Precision Manufacturing (microfluidics and sensors) — with deep expertise in energy, fluids, heat transfer, water, sensors, and aerobiology. Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from UC Davis and B.S. in chemical engineering from Montana State University; named on 40 U.S. patents and 20 peer-reviewed publications, and a three-time R&D 100 award winner.
Advisor
Peter Schmitz
CFO of CAMINNO, Inc. A global senior leader who develops and implements the strategies that carry technology companies to profitability, with a well-rounded background across finance, business development, sales, operations, and supply chain. Bicultural and bilingual, he is well versed at wearing the many hats a growing organization requires — from taking a leveraged start-up to profitability with global customers to establishing a U.S. presence for a European venture firm. MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Discuss a partnership.
SELA is developing its first application-specific laser system. We welcome conversations with strategic partners, program officers, and investors who want to engage at this stage.
We read everything. Expect a reply within a few business days.
SELA Photonics is registered in SAM.gov. Capability discussions and teaming inquiries are welcome.
SELA Photonics LLC
Albuquerque, New Mexico