Opening optical four-wave mixing channels with giant enhancement using ultraslow pump waves.

We show that by strongly modifying the dispersion properties of a four-level system, non-existing wave mixing channels can be opened and significantly enhanced. Specifically, we show that coherent optical four-wave mixing with a pump wave mediated by electromagnetically induced transparency (thereby propagating with an extremely slow group velocity) will lead to many orders of magnitude enhancement in the amplitude of the generated wave. Contrary to common belief, a large transparency window, which causes a large propagation velocity, actually diminishes efficient mixing wave production.