Generation of entanglement in systems of intercoupled qubits

We consider systems of two and three qubits, mutually coupled by Heisenberg-type exchange interaction and interacting with external laser fields. We show that these systems allow one to create maximally entangled Bell states, as well as three qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger and W states. In particular, we point out that some of the target states are the eigenstates of the initial bare system. Due to this, one can create entangled states by means of pulse area and adiabatic techniques, when starting from a separable (non-entangled) ground state. On the other hand, for target states, not present initially in the eigensystem of the model, we apply the robust stimulated Raman adiabatic passage and $\pi$ pulse techniques, that create desired coherent superpositions of non-entangled eigenstates.