Generation of entangled photon pairs in optical cavity-QED: Operating in the bad cavity limit

We propose an optical cavity-QED scheme for the deterministic generation of polarization-entangled photon pairs that operates with high fidelity even in the bad cavity limit. The scheme is based on the interaction of an excited four-level atom with two empty optical cavity modes via an adiabatic passage process. Monte Carlo wavefunction simulations are used to evaluate the fidelity of the cavity-QED source and its entanglement capability in the presence of decoherence. In the bad cavity limit, fidelities close to one are predicted for state-of-the-art experimental parameter values. © 2008 IOP Publishing Ltd.