Quantum repeaters: fundamental and future

An overview of the Quantum Repeater techniques based on Entanglement Distillation and Swapping is provided. Beginning with a brief history and the basic concepts of the quantum repeaters, the article primarily focuses on the communication model based on the quantum repeater techniques, which mainly consists, of two fundamental modules --- the Entanglement Distillation module and the Swapping module. The realizations of Entanglement Distillation are discussed, including the Bernstein's Procrustean method, the Entanglement Concentration and the CNOT-purification method, etc. The schemes of implementing Swapping, which include the Swapping based on Bell-state measurement and the Swapping in Cavity QED, are also introduced. Then a comparison between these realizations and evaluations on them are presented. At last, the article discusses the experimental schemes of quantum repeaters at present, documents some remaining problems and emerging trends in this field.