The mid-infrared 21 angstrom InAs/24 angstrom GaSb superlattices (SLs) designed for the 4 pm cutoff wavelength were grown by molecular beam epitaxy at growth temperatures between 370 and 430 degrees C in order to reduce residual background carriers. The lowest density of 1.8 x 10(11) cm(-2) was obtained from the SLs grown at 400 degrees C. With increasing growth temperature, in-plane hole mobility decreased from 8740 to 1400 cm(2)/Vs due to increased interfacial roughness, while the photoluminescence (PL) intensity increased due to a decrease in the number of nonstoichiometric nonradiative defects. Further reduction of carrier density to 1 x 10(11) cm(-2) was achieved by increasing barrier width. As GaSb layer width increases from 24 to 48 A, the cutoff wavelength decreased from 4.1 to 3.4 mu m, which is still in the mid-infrared detection window. More importantly, a dramatic improvement on the PL intensity and the full width at half maximum was achieved from the SL samples with the wider GaSb widths. All mid-infrared SL samples investigated in our studies were residually p-type. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.