  Owing to the inevitable loss in communication channels, the distance of
entanglement distribution is limited to approximately 100 kilometres on the
ground. Quantum repeaters can circumvent this problem by using quantum memory
and entanglement swapping. As the elementary link of a quantum repeater, the
heralded distribution of two-party entanglement between two remote nodes has
only been realized with built-in-type quantum memories. These schemes suffer
from the trade-off between multiplexing capacity and deterministic properties
and hence hinder the development of efficient quantum repeaters. Quantum
repeaters based on absorptive quantum memories can overcome such limitations
because they separate the quantum memories and the quantum light sources. Here
we present an experimental demonstration of heralded entanglement between
absorptive quantum memories. We build two nodes separated by 3.5 metres, each
containing a polarization-entangled photon-pair source and a solid-state
quantum memory with bandwidth up to 1 gigahertz. A joint Bell-state measurement
in the middle station heralds the successful distribution of maximally
entangled states between the two quantum memories with a fidelity of 80.4 $\pm$
2.2 per cent ($\pm$1 standard deviation). The quantum nodes and channels
demonstrated here can serve as an elementary link of a quantum repeater.
Moreover, the wideband absorptive quantum memories used in the nodes are
compatible with deterministic entanglement sources and can simultaneously
support multiplexing, which paves the way for the construction of practical
solid-state quantum repeaters and high-speed quantum networks.
