Quantum memories for single photons from cavity-QED

We investigate the feasibility of implementing an elementary building block for quantum information processing. The combination of a deterministic single photon source based on vacuum stimulated adiabatic rapid passage, and a quantum memory based on electromagnetically induced transparency in atomic vapour is outlined. Both systems are able to produce and process temporally shaped wavepackets which provides a way to maintain the indistinguishability of retrieved and original photons. We also propose an efficient and robust ´repeat-until-success´ quantum computation scheme based on this hybrid architecture.