  Samples with few hundred atoms within a few micrometer sized region of space
are large enough to provide efficient cooperative absorption and emission of
light, and small enough to ensure strong dipole-dipole interactions when atoms
are excited into high-lying Rydberg states. Based on a recently proposed
collective encoding scheme, we propose to build few-qubit quantum registers in
such samples. The registers can store and transmit quantum information in the
form of single photons, and they can employ entanglement pumping protocols to
perform ideally in networks for scalable quantum computing and long distance
quantum communication.
