Room temperature electroluminescence in the midinfrared near 4 m is reported from GaInAsSbP light emitting diodes grown on GaSb by liquid phase epitaxy. Comparison of the electro-and photoluminescence revealed that light is generated on the p side of the diode. The energy shift ͑24 meV͒ is consistent with band gap narrowing and recombination via band tail states due to the Zn doping ͑1 ϫ 10 18 cm −3 ͒ in the p layer of the structure. The temperature dependent behavior of the luminescence and the improved emission intensity was attributed to recombination from localized states arising from electrostatic potential fluctuations due to compositional inhomogeneities in these alloys. © 2007 American Institute of Physics. ͓DOI: 10.1063/1.2741147͔The realization of high emittance light emitting diodes ͑LEDs͒ and lasers for the midinfrared ͑2-5 m͒ spectral range, which can work efficiently at room temperature, is hampered by competing nonradiative Auger recombination and intervalence band absorption ͑IVBA͒. 1 This leads to poor internal efficiency in LEDs and high threshold currents in diode lasers. If suitable optoelectronic components could be made available one can envisage a wide variety of applications, including chemical process control, environmental monitoring of atmospheric pollution, and free space optical communications. One promising approach is to use the GaInAsPSb pentanary alloys because for a given value of the band gap ͑or lattice constant͒ properties such as the refractive index, spin-orbit valence band splitting ͑⌬ so ͒, or thermal expansion coefficient can be independently varied. 2,3 This offers a different approach to control optical confinement, carrier leakage, IVBA, and Auger recombination. However, although GaInAsPSb alloys have been grown, there has been very little work in this area. 4,5 Luminescence emission properties of broken gap GaInAsSbP / InAs isotype heterostructures and prototype light emitting diodes and photodiodes at short wavelengths ͑ Ͻ4 m͒ have been reported for alloys grown by liquid phase epitaxy ͑LPE͒ lattice matched onto InAs. 6,7 Recently, AlGaInAsSb alloys grown by molecular beam epitaxy have been effectively used as the barrier layers in room temperature midinfrared quantum well lasers. 8 In this letter the epitaxial growth of GaInAsPSb/ GaSb p-i-n structures from the liquid phase and a study of their electroluminescence properties are presented.Epitaxial growth of Ga 1−x In x As y P z Sb l-y-z single epilayers as well as p-i-n homostructures in which p-type layers were doped with Zn ͑1 ϫ 10 18 cm −3 ͒ and n-type layers were doped with Te ͑4 ϫ 10 17 cm −3 ͒ was carried out from antimony-rich melts onto Ge doped p-type GaSb ͑100͒ substrates. The use of antimony as the solvent for LPE growth of GaSb-related alloys has some advantages 9,10 compared with the more conventional techniques based on the low melting point metals, using In or Ga as solvents, namely, ͑1͒ Growth from Sb solution decreases the concentration of stoichiometric defects such as V Ga +Ga Sb , ͑2͒ etchback ...