Quantum entanglement in coupled lossy waveguides

We investigate the viability of coupled waveguides as basic units of quantum circuits. We study entanglement when the waveguides are fed in by light produced by a down-converter working either in low gain limit or under large gain. We present explicit analytical results for the measure of entanglement in terms of the logarithmic negativity for a variety of input states. We also address the effect of loss on entanglement dynamics of waveguide modes. Our results indicate that the waveguide structures are reasonably robust against the effect of loss and thus quite appropriate for quantum architectures as well as for the study of coherent phenomena like random walks. Our analysis is based on realistic structures used currently. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America