Nondegenerate four-wave mixing in a double-/spl Lambda/ system under the influence of coherent population trapping

The atomic coherence effect can be used in enhancing the efficiencies of nonlinear optical processes. Particularly, nondegenerate four-wave mixing (NDFWM) in multilevel systems has recently gained attention in connection with the advantage of using coherent population trapping (CPT) or electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) to enhance the efficiency of generated signals. Generally speaking, linear absorption competes with the nonlinear signal generation at the exact one-photon resonance condition. However, the linear absorption can, in principle, be reduced or even eliminated by preparing the system in the CPT or EIT state. We report experimental demonstrations of NDFWM in several multi-level configurations in rubidium atomic vapor. In one of the double-/spl Lambda/ systems an unusual behavior of signal output power as a function of pump power, i.e. a maximum in the generated signal power is reached as the pump power increases, is experimentally observed. By comparing with several related /spl Lambda/ and double-/spl Lambda/ systems, we have concluded that CPT is the mechanism for this interesting effect.