IV-VI semiconductor vertical cavity surface emitting quantum well lasers (VCSELs) for the 4-6 mum spectral region were grown by molecular beam epitaxy on BaF2 (1 1 1) 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 Gob, 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 6.07 mum for VCSELs of type A and at 4.8 mum for that of type B with a maximum operation temperature of 85 K.