Abstract

We consider a general proposal for generating a train of entangled single-photon wavepackets. The photons are created inside a resonator via an interaction with an active medium. In the course of the generation process photons are transferred to the continuum outside the resonator through cavity loss. We show that wave packets generated in this way can be regarded as independent logical qubits. This and the possibility of producing strong entanglement between the qubits suggests many applications in quantum communication. We give a specific example in the context of cavity QED and show that undesired decoherence effects can be efficiently reduced in the considered scheme. ©2000 The American Physical Society.