  We propose a procedure for the robust preparation of maximally entangled
states of identical fermionic qubits, studying the role played by particle
statistics in the process. The protocol exploits externally activated noisy
channels to reset the system to a known state. The subsequent interference
effects generated at a beam splitter result in a mixture of maximally entangled
Bell states and NOON states. We also discuss how every maximally entangled
state of two fermionic qubits distributed over two spatial modes can be
obtained from one another by fermionic passive optical transformations. Using a
pseudospin-insensitive, non-absorbing, parity check detector, the proposed
technique is thus shown to deterministically prepare any arbitrary maximally
entangled state of two identical fermions. These results extend recent findings
related to bosonic qubits. Finally, we analyze the performance of the protocol
for both bosons and fermions when the externally activated noisy channels are
not used and the two qubits undergo standard types of noise. The results supply
further insights towards viable strategies for noise-protected entanglement
exploitable in quantum-enhanced technologies.
