Plastic optical fibres, which have a local attenuation minimum at 650 nm, have attracted much interest for low-cost short-haul communication systems. Red vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) provide a potential solution as light sources for these systems. The operation of vertical cavity emitters is based on a Fably-Perot microcavity, which is formed by placing an optically active region inside of two parallel mirrors. These mirrors are usually formed epitaxially. So far, metal organic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD) has been the major technology used for growing visible VCSELs. Recently, an alternative growth method-solid-source molecular beam epitaxy (SSMBE)-has been introduced to br a viable solution to the fabrication of these structures. The authors present the first MBE-grown visible AlGaInP vertical-cavity surface-emitting losers. A laser with a. 10 mum emitting window has an external quantum efficiency of 6.65% under continuous wave operation and it is still lasing at 45 degreesC. Furthermore, a threshold current less than 1.0 mA is obtained for a device, which has an 8 mum emitting window.