  Quantum information theory predicts that when the transmission resource is
doubled in quantum channels, the amount of information transmitted can be
increased more than twice by quantum channel coding technique, whereas the
increase is at most twice in classical information theory. This remarkable
feature, the superadditive quantum coding gain, can be implemented by
appropriate choices of code words and corresponding quantum decoding which
requires a collective quantum measurement. Recently, the first experimental
demonstration was reported [Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 167906 (2003)]. The purpose of
this paper is to describe our experiment in detail. Particularly, a design
strategy of quantum collective decoding in physical quantum circuits is
emphasized. We also address the practical implication of the gain on
communication performance by introducing the quantum-classical hybrid coding
scheme. We show how the superadditive quantum coding gain, even in a small code
length, can boost the communication performance of conventional coding
technique.
