The electron diffusion length inp‐type GaAs:Ge grown by liquid‐phase epitaxy has been measured as a function of hole concentration. The direct measurements were made by two different techniques —a laser beam scan on beveled samples and an &agr; particle scan on cleaved samples. These measurements are in good agreement and show that the diffusion length increases from ∼6 &mgr;m atp=1×1019cm−3to ∼20 &mgr;m atp=7×1016cm−3. In addition, the diffusion length was estimated from electroluminescent decay times ofp‐njunctions and the values obtained were in reasonable agreement with those directly measured for the same materials.