The quantum repeater protocol is a promising approach for implementing long-distance quantum communication and large-scale quantum networks. A key idea of the quantum repeater protocol is to use long-lived quantum memories to achieve an efficient entanglement connection between different repeater segments, with polynomial scaling. Here, we report an experiment that realizes the efficient connection of two quantum repeater segments via on-demand entanglement swapping through the use of two atomic quantum memories with storage times of tens of milliseconds. With the memory enhancement, acceleration in the scaling is demonstrated in the rate for a successful entanglement connection. Experimental realization of the entanglement connection of two quantum repeater segments with an efficient memory-enhanced scaling demonstrates a key advantage of the quantum repeater protocol, creating a cornerstone for the development of future large-scale quantum networks.

量子中继器协议是实现长距离量子通信和大规模量子网络的一种很有前途的方法。量子中继器协议的一个关键思想是使用长寿命的量子存储器来实现不同中继器段之间的有效纠缠连接，并具有多项式缩放。在这里，我们报告了一个实验，该实验通过使用存储时间为数十毫秒的两个原子量子存储器，通过按需纠缠交换实现了两个量子中继器段的有效连接。随着内存的增强，成功的纠缠连接的速率证明了缩放的加速。