A breakthrough into the full characterisation of quantum states has been published today as a Editors' Suggestion in the journal Physical Review Letters.

The full characterisation (tomography) of quantum states is a necessity for future quantum computing. However, standard techniques are inadequate for the large quantum bit-strings necessary in full scale quantum computers.

A research team from the Quantum Photonics Laboratory at RMIT University and EQuS at the University of Sydney has demonstrated a new technique for quantum tomography -- self-guided quantum tomography -- which opens future pathways for characterisation of large quantum states and provides robustness against inevitable system noise.

Dr Alberto Peruzzo, Director of the Quantum Photonics Laboratory, said: "This is a big step forward in quantum tomography. Our technique can be applied to all quantum computing architectures in laboratories around the world."

"Characterising quantum states is a serious bottleneck in quantum information science. Self-guided quantum tomography uses a search algorithm to iteratively 'find' the quantum state.

"This technique significantly reduces the necessary resources by removing the need for any data storage or post-processing."

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