Controlling enhancement and suppression of four-wave mixing via polarized light

Abstract

We show that the four-wave mixing (FWM) processes in a multi-Zeeman level atomic system can be enhanced and suppressed by changing the polarization of one of the pump beams. Different polarization states of the pump beams will act on different transition pathways among the multi-Zeeman levels with different transition strengths, which affect the FWM efficiencies. An additional dress field applied to the adjacent transition can cause energy level splitting and therefore control the enhancement and suppression of the FWM processes in the system. The experimental results are in good agreement with our theoretical calculations.