We introduce a purely graph-theoretical object, namely the coding clique, to construct quantum errorcorrecting codes. Almost all quantum codes constructed so far are stabilizer (additive) codes and the construction of nonadditive codes, which are potentially more efficient, is not as well understood as that of stabilizer codes. Our graphical approach provides a unified and classical way to construct both stabilizer and nonadditive codes. In particular we have explicitly constructed the optimal ((10,24,3)) code and a family of 1-error detecting nonadditive codes with the highest encoding rate so far. In the case of stabilizer codes a thorough search becomes tangible and we have classified all the extremal stabilizer codes up to 8 qubits.
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