Optical propagation and vibrational energy loss in gaseous waveguide lasers

It is observed that the condition for minimum optical attenuation in a dielectric waveguide laser simultaneously maximizes long range vibrational energy transfer from the upper laser level molecules to the waveguide wall. It is suggested that a specifically chosen thin coating on the waveguide wall could increase gain by both decreasing deactivation of the upper laser level and increasing deactivation of the lower laser level. These ideas are applied to the CO
2
laser.