Enhanced high-order-harmonic generation and wave mixing via two-color multiphoton excitation of atoms and molecules

We consider harmonics generation and wave mixing by two-color multiphoton resonant excitation of three-level atoms and molecules in strong laser fields. The coherent part of the spectra corresponding to multicolor harmonics generation is investigated. The obtained analytical results on the basis of a generalized rotating wave approximation are in a good agreement with numerical calculations. The results applied to the hydrogen atoms and homonuclear diatomic molecular ions show that one can achieve efficient generation of moderately high multicolor harmonics via multiphoton resonant excitation by appropriate laser pulses.