Quantum error correction (QEC) codes are usually designed to correct errors regardless of their physical origins. In large-scale devices, this is an essential feature. In smaller-scale devices, however, the main error sources are often understood, and this knowledge could be exploited for more efficient error correction. Optimizing the QEC protocol is therefore a promising strategy in smaller devices. Typically, this involves tailoring the protocol to a given decoherence channel by solving an appropriate optimization problem. Here we introduce a new optimization-based approach, which maximizes the robustness to faults in the recovery. Our approach is inspired by recent experiments, where such faults have been a significant source of logical errors. We illustrate this approach with a three-qubit model, and show how near-term experiments could benefit from more robust QEC protocols.

量子纠错 (QEC) 码通常用于纠正错误，无论其物理来源如何。在大型设备中，这是必不可少的功能。然而，在较小规模的设备中，主要的错误来源通常是可以理解的，并且可以利用这些知识来进行更有效的错误纠正。因此，优化 QEC 协议在小型设备中是一种很有前途的策略。通常，这涉及通过解决适当的优化问题将协议定制到给定的退相干通道。在这里，我们介绍了一种新的基于优化的方法，它最大限度地提高了恢复过程中对故障的鲁棒性。我们的方法受到最近实验的启发，这些错误是逻辑错误的重要来源。我们用一个三量子比特模型来说明这种方法，