The all-trans to 13-cis isomerization of the retinal chromophore in bacteriorhodopsin (bR) plays an essential role in Nature (e.g., in photosynthesis of halobacteria). bR is a candidate for optical nanodevices driven by laser pulses, and a prospective material for optical memory storage devices and photoswitches. From the viewpoint of possible applications of bR in nanodevices we performed an experimental study of the isomerization yield by excitation with tailored laser pulses, using a coherent control approach. With specially shaped excitation pulses (found in optimization experiments) we are able to manipulate the 13-cis yield in bR over an absolute range of 60% (30% enhancement as well as 30% suppression in comparison to excitation with a transform-limited pulse) while keeping the absorbed excitation energy at a constant level.
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