Versatile source of polarization-entangled photons

We propose a method for the generation of a large variety of entangled states, encoded in the polarization degrees of freedom of N photons, within the same experimental setup. Starting with uncorrelated photons, emitted from N arbitrary single-photon sources, and using linear optical tools only, we demonstrate the creation of all symmetric states (e.g., GHZ and W states), as well as all symmetric and nonsymmetric total angular momentum eigenstates of the N-qubit compound.