Zia Laser Inc., a start-up optics company founded a year ago by faculty and former students of the University of New Mexico's Center for High Technology Materials, produced its first round of sample quantum-dot 1550-nm tunable gain chips in April.

The company delivered 25 of the chips for alpha testing for measurement equipment and widely tunable lasers for long-haul and regional-based telecommunications applications. The chips -- which have S-, C- and L-band tunability with a 40-mW maximum output -- may eventually replace quantum-well-based devices because they provide a broad gain spectrum at 80 percent less current density, flatter output power and a 33 percent increase in slope efficiency.

Sohale Mufti, chief of marketing and sales for Zia, said that, if all goes well with alpha and beta testing, a product may be commercially available by the first quarter of next year.