Determination of the energy characteristics of the active medium of CO2 lasers from measurements of the gain

An investigation is made of the feasibility of determining three temperatures of the active medium of CO₂ lasers (the gas translational temperature and the vibrational temperatures of the lower and upper active levels) by an analysis of the results of measurements of the small-signal gain for vibrational–rotational transitions in the regular 00⁰1–10⁰0 and 00⁰1–02⁰0 bands using the nonlinear least-squares method. It is shown that these data are inadequate for unambiguous determination of the vibrational temperatures.