Entangled photon pairs produced by a quantum dot strongly coupled to a microcavity

We show theoretically that entangled photon pairs can be produced on demand through the biexciton decay of a quantum dot strongly coupled to the modes of a photonic crystal. The strong coupling allows us to tune the energy of the mixed exciton-photon (polariton) eigenmodes and to overcome the natural splitting existing between the exciton states coupled with different linear polarizations of light. Polariton states are moreover well protected against dephasing due to their lifetime of ten to a hundred times shorter than that of a bare exciton. Our analysis shows that the scheme proposed is achievable with the present technology.