  A class of optimal quantum repeaters for qubits is suggested. The schemes are
minimal, i.e. involve a single additional probe qubit, and optimal, i.e.
provide the maximum information adding the minimum amount of noise. Information
gain and state disturbance are quantified by fidelities which, for our schemes,
saturate the ultimate bound imposed by quantum mechanics for randomly
distributed signals. Special classes of signals are also investigated, in order
to improve the information-disturbance trade-off. Extension to higher
dimensional signals (qudits) is straightforward.
