Abstract

Retinal is a chromophore bound to the amino acid side groups of rhodopsins, which acts as the light detector of higher life forms. After photo-irradiation, the retinal results in conformational change between all-trans and cis isomers. The motivation of our study is to drive the molecule along the desired reaction pathway and control the product yield by tailoring the excitation pulses. In the present paper, we demonstrate wave-packet interferometry in all-trans retinal using phase-locked pulses, combined with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). HPLC analysis is essential for precise evaluation of isomerization yield, but there have been only a few applications to femtochemistry.

© 2007 IEEE