title: Control of the blue fluorescent protein with advanced evolutionary pulse shaping.
abstract: We demonstrate optical coherent control of the two-photon fluorescence of the blue fluorescent protein (BFP), which is of interest in investigations of protein-protein interactions. In addition to biological relevance, BFP represents an interesting target for coherent control from a chemical perspective due to its many components of highly nonexponential fluorescence decay and low quantum yield resulting from excited state isomerization. Using a genetic algorithm with a multiplicative (rather than ratiometric) fitness parameter, we are able to control the ratio of BFP fluorescence to second-harmonic generation without a considerable drop in the maximized signal. The importance of linear chirp and power-scaling on the discrimination process is investigated in detail.
authors.affiliation: Center for Ultrafast Optical Science, University of Michigan, 2200 Bonisteel Boulevard, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2099, USA. etkaczyk@umich.edu
authors.forename: Eric R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Tkaczyk
authors.forename: Koit
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mauring
authors.forename: Alan H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Tkaczyk
authors.forename: Veera
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Krasnenko
authors.forename: Jing Yong
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.forename: James R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Baker
authors.forename: Theodore B
authors.initials: TB
authors.lastname: Norris
mesh_terms: D005453:Fluorescence; D031541:Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer; D008164:Luminescent Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics; D017785:Photons
chemical_list: D008164:Luminescent Proteins