The noise in physical qubits is fundamentally asymmetric: in most devices, phase errors are much more probable than bit flips. We propose a quantum error-correcting code that takes advantage of this asymmetry and shows good performance at a relatively small cost in redundancy, requiring less than a doubling of the number of physical qubits for error correction. This code is particularly adapted for building an efficient quantum memory.

• Received 12 June 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.75.032345