Passive optical limiters that rely on fluence dependent absorption from excited states of metallo-organics typically provide a 100 - 200 fold suppression of 8 nanosecond pulses in a device with a linear transmission of 70%. In principle, these same materials in an optimized `bottleneck' limiter design should provide a 10$+4$/-fold suppression. To obtain this performance, the ground state population of the active molecules must be largely depleted, while at the same time the fluence at all points in the limiter must be kept below the material damage level. Design determinants and material figures of merit appropriate for such optimized devices are outlined and discussed.
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