Characterization of two-qubit perfect entanglers

Here we consider perfect entanglers from another perspective. It is shown that there are some special perfect entanglers which can maximally entangle a full product basis. We explicitly construct a one-parameter family of such entanglers together with the proper product basis that they maximally entangle. This special family of perfect entanglers contains some well-known operators such as controlled-NOT (CNOT) and double-CNOT, but not rootSWAP. In addition, it is shown that all perfect entanglers with entangling power equal to the maximal value 2/9 are also special perfect entanglers. It is proved that the one-parameter family is the only possible set of special perfect entanglers. Also we provide an analytic way to implement any arbitrary two-qubit gate, given a proper special perfect entangler supplemented with single-qubit gates. Such gates are shown to provide a minimum universal gate construction in that just two of them are necessary and sufficient in implementation of a generic two-qubit gate.