ABSTRACT
Inherent binary or collective interactions in ensembles of quantum emitters induce a spread in the energy and lifetime of their eigenstates. While this typically causes fast decay and dephasing, in many cases certain special entangled collective states with minimal decay can be found, which possess ideal properties for spectroscopy, precision measurements or information storage. We show that for a specific choice of laser frequency, power and geometry or a suitable configuration of control fields one can efficiently prepare these states. We demonstrate this by studying preparation schemes for strongly subradiant entangled states of a chain of dipole-dipole coupled emitters. The prepared state fidelity and its entanglement depth is further improved via spatial excitation phase engineering or tailored magnetic fields.