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Quenching of highly excited vibrational states of NO2 in baths of CO2, N2O, and CO has been investigated. Dilute NO2 mixtures were excited by a pulse from an excimer pumped dye laser operating at 495 nm. The ν3 antisymmetric stretching modes of CO2 (2349 cm-1) and N2O (2223 cm-1) and the v=1 level of CO (2143 cm-1) were probed with continuous wave IR diode lasers. The amount of energy transferred from excited NO2 to the ν3 modes of both CO2 and N2O was found to be 3%±1% of the original excitation energy. On the other hand, a smaller amount of energy (0.9%±0.3%) was deposited into the CO vibrational mode for NO2 contained in a dilute CO bath. These results support a picture of very inefficient transfer from high energy states of donor molecules to the high-frequency vibrational modes of small bath molecules. Differences in the efficiency of energy reception by the high-frequency modes of these three molecules scale roughly as the infrared transition moments for the bath states indicating the importance of resonance effects in the energy transfer process, but a combination of short- and long-range force mechanisms is probably necessary to account for the observed differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]