We demonstrate that a single subcycle optical pulse can be generated when a pulse with a few optical cycles penetrates through resonant two-level dense media with a subwavelength structure. Furthermore, the output pulse has a well defined absolute phase [1]. Further, coherent control and the creation of entangled states are discussed in a system consisting of superconducting flux qubits. As our main result here, a coherent control scheme is presented which is robust against imperfections in the driving fields, and that enables one to prepare different Bell states consisting of the collective ground and excited states of a two-qubit system [2].