Single photons are the flying qubits of choice for distributing entanglement in a quantum internet. Quantum memories embedded in quantum repeaters are crucial to overcome transmission loss and enhance the rate of quantum communication. A multimode memory can further boost the channel capacity. However, benchmarking and building a practical quantum memory that simultaneously optimizes multiple performance metrics poses two key challenges. Here, we introduce quantum interconnect rate to comprehensively quantify quantum memories, and further demonstrate a high-performance quantum memory that simultaneously integrates three essential criteria at once: large multimode capacity, high efficiency, and high fidelity. Operating on 11-dimensional spatial modes, our memory achieves a uniform efficiency exceeding 80% and qubit storage fidelities above 99%, enabling the efficient storage of high-dimensional qudits. Based on these capabilities, we estimate a distribution of 3.56 bits of quantum information over a 1000-km repeater link in one minute, highlighting a practical pathway toward scalable quantum interconnects and quantum networks.
@article{arxiv.2603.01156,
title = {A high-performance quantum memory for quantum interconnects},
author = {H. -X Luo and C. Li and J. -L. Ren and Y. Yuan and Y. -L. Wen and J. -F. Li and Y. -F. Wang and S. -C. Zhang and H. Yan and S. -L. Zhu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.01156},
year = {2026}
}