The first (to our knowledge) III-V mid-IR vertical-cavity: surface-emitting
lasers (lambda = 2.9 mu m) are demonstrated and show promising characteris
tics for chemical detection applications. The cw optical-pumping threshold
is low (4 mW at 80 K) and efficiency is high (5.6% W/W). Pulsed operation i
s obtained up to 280 K and cw up to 160 K. Lateral-mode confinement will le
ad to spectrally pure, single-mode output for chemical identification.