  We investigate the process of entanglement transfer from a three-mode
quantized field to a system of three spatially separated qubits each one made
of a two-level atom resonantly coupled to a cavity mode. The optimal conditions
for entanglement transfer, evaluated by atomic tripartite negativity, are
derived for radiation prepared in qubit-like and Gaussian entangled states in
terms of field parameters, atom-cavity interaction time, cavity mirror losses,
and atomic preparation. For qubit-like states we found that for negligible
cavity losses some states may completely transfer their entanglement to the
atoms and/or be exactly mapped to the atomic state, whereas for Gaussian states
we found a range of field parameters to obtain a large entanglement transfer.
The purity of the three-qubit states and the entanglement of two-qubit
subsystems are also discussed in some details.
