Deterministic cavity-QED source of polarization-entangled photon pairs

We present two cavity quantum electrodynamics proposals that, sharing the same basic elements, allow for the deterministic generation of entangled photon pairs by means of a three-level atom successively coupled to two single longitudinal mode high-Q optical resonators presenting polarization degeneracy. In the faster proposal, the three-level atom yields a polarization-entangled photon pair via two truncated Rabi oscillations, whereas in the adiabatic proposal, a counterintuitive stimulated Raman adiabatic passage process is considered. Although slower than the former process, this second method is very efficient and robust under fluctuations of the experimental parameters and, particularly interesting, almost completely insensitive to atomic decay