Beam Splitter Entangler for Light Fields

We propose an experimentally feasible scheme to generate various types of entangled states of light fields by using beam splitters and single-photon detectors. Two light fields are incident on two beam splitters and are split into strong and weak output modes respectively. A conditional joint measurement on both weak output modes may result in an entanglement between the two strong output modes. The conditions for the maximal entanglement are discussed based on the concurrence. Several specific examples are also examined.