The effective rate of deactivation from the terminal state to the ground state of a rare earth ion doped optical material in a four-level amplifying or lasing scheme may be increased greatly by doping the optical material with two rare earth ions, an activator and a deactivator. Energy transfer occurs between the terminal state in the activator ion and the deactivator ion. The transition from the deactivator to the ground state occurs via phonon emission. By increasing the deactivation rate, the efficiency of the laser and the amplifier is increased.