Optimal control experiments can readily identify effective shaped laser
pulses, or "photonic reagents", that achieve a wide variety of objectives. For
many practical applications, an important criterion is that a particular
photonic reagent prescription still produce a good, if not optimal, target
objective yield when transferred to a different system or laboratory, {even if
the same shaped pulse profile cannot be reproduced exactly. As a specific
example, we assess the potential for transferring optimal photonic reagents for
the objective of optimizing a ratio of photoproduct ions from a family of
halomethanes through three related experiments.} First, applying the same set
of photonic reagents with systematically varying second- and third-order chirp
on both laser systems generated similar shapes of the associated control
landscape (i.e., relation between the objective yield and the variables
describing the photonic reagents). Second, optimal photonic reagents obtained
from the first laser system were found to still produce near optimal yields on
the second laser system. Third, transferring a collection of photonic reagents
optimized on the first laser system to the second laser system reproduced
systematic trends in photoproduct yields upon interaction with the homologous
chemical family. Despite inherent differences between the two systems,
successful and robust transfer of photonic reagents is demonstrated in the
above three circumstances. The ability to transfer photonic reagents from one
laser system to another is analogous to well-established utilitarian operating
procedures with traditional chemical reagents. The practical implications of
the present results for experimental quantum control are discussed
