IV–VI semiconductor vertical cavity surface emitting quantum well lasers (VCSELs) for the 4–6 μm spectral region were grown by molecular beam epitaxy on BaF2 (111) substrates. The VCSEL structures consist of two Bragg mirrors with an active cavity region consisting of PbTe quantum wells inserted into Pb1−xEuxTe as barrier material. For the Bragg mirrors, two different layer structures were investigated, namely, (A) the use of nearly lattice-matched ternary Pb1−xEuxTe layers with Eu contents alternating between 1% and 6%, and (B) the use of EuTe and Pb1−xEuxTe (x=6%) as bilayer combination. The latter yields a much higher refractive index contrast but features a lattice-mismatch of about 2%. VCSEL structures of each Bragg mirror type were fabricated and optically pumped laser emission was obtained at 6.07μm for VCSELs of type A and at 4.8μm for that of type B with a maximum operation temperature of 85K.