Calibration of liquid crystal ultrafast pulse shaper with common-path spectral interferometry and application to coherent control with a covariance matrix adaptation evolutionary strategy.

An ultrafast pulse shaper for coherent control applications is described, complete with a simple, reliable calibration technique and an advanced learning control algorithm. The calibration technique makes use of a common-path interferometer, producing less noisy measurements than a conventional Mach-Zehnder interferometer. A covariance matrix adaptation evolutionary strategy (ES) is demonstrated to perform better than a traditional ES for high-dimensional search landscapes.