Quantum repeater with Rydberg-blocked atomic ensembles in fiber-coupled cavities

We propose and analyze a quantum repeater architecture in which Rydberg-blocked atomic ensembles inside optical cavities are linked by optical fibers. Entanglement generation, swapping, and purification are achieved through collective laser manipulations of the ensembles and photon transmission. Successful transmission and storage of entanglement are heralded by ionization events rather than by photon detection signals used in previous proposals. We demonstrate how the high charge detection efficiency allows for a shortened average entanglement generation time, and we analyze an implementation of our scheme with ensembles of Cs atoms.