Control of selectivity of chemical reaction via control of wave packet evolution

A time‐dependent formulation of two‐photon spectroscopy is employed to show that selectivity of reactivity can be achieved via coherent two‐photon processes. The problem of finding the optimum waveform (i.e., coherent pulse sequence) that will maximize the formation of a desired chemical species is formulated as a problem in the calculus of variations, and solved for two different cases.