Quantum repeaters

I will briefly describe recent progress on the development of practical quantum repeater architectures, where the most immediate goal is to outperform the direct transmission of quantum states. I will focus on architectures using solid-state atomic ensembles as quantum memories, which may allow very efficient temporal multiplexing through the implementation of multimode memories. I will also discuss a promising approach based on trapped ions, which builds on the impressive experimental progress achieved with the goal of quantum computation in mind.