Quantum repeater holds the promise for scalable long-distance quantumcommunication. Towards a first quantum repeater based on memory-photonentanglement, significant progresses have made in improving performances of thebuilding blocks. Further development is hindered by the difficulty ofintegrating key capabilities such as long storage time and high memoryefficiency into a single system. Here we report an efficient light-matterinterface with sub-second lifetime by confining laser-cooled atoms with 3Doptical lattice and enhancing the atom-photon coupling with a ring cavity. Aninitial retrieval efficiency of 76(5)% together with an 1/e lifetime of 0.22(1)s have been achieved simultaneously, which already support sub-Hz entanglementdistribution up to 1000 km through quantum repeater. Together with an efficienttelecom interface and moderate multiplexing, our result may enable a firstquantum repeater system that beats direct transmission in the near future.
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