Frédéric Bouchard: The 2025 SPIE Early Career Achievement Award – Industry/Government Focus

Frédéric Bouchard, a research officer at National Research Council (NRC) Canada, is profoundly impacting quantum-information processing through his inventive approach and unwavering dedication to photonics research. His local and international collaborations with Canadian and European researchers significantly advanced the NRC’s High-Throughput and Secure Networks (HTSN) challenge program, which aims to develop and implement the next generation of high-speed telecommunication networks. More specifically, he co-developed a five-km, free-space link for testing novel quantum communication protocols in the presence of atmospheric turbulence and adaptive optics systems.

Serving as the NRC’s Scientific Lead for the Canadian Space Agency’s Quantum Encryption and Science Satellite (QEYSSat) initiative, Bouchard has also developed a quantum-photonics platform utilizing ultrafast photons with pulse durations below the picosecond level. Using programmable optical ultrafast temporal interferometric network elements (POUTINEs), he has explored and demonstrated complete functionalities in various applications, such as ultrafast quantum key distribution, quantum simulations, and high-dimensional quantum gates for quantum information processing. POUTINE represents a major leap in quantum computing technology, with potential applications ranging from cryptography to data processing at unimaginably fast speeds, heralding a new generation of computer processing power, speed, and cybersecurity.

Beyond his research, Bouchard is a dedicated leader and mentor. He has led organizing committees for international photonics meetings, including 2019’s International Conference on Optical Angular Momentum (ICOAM), to create opportunities for quantum photonics researchers to share their work and network, and, in his role at the NRC, supervises multiple postdoctoral fellows and doctoral students. He completed both his MSc (2016) and PhD (2019) in physics at the University of Ottawa’s Max Planck Centre for Extreme and Quantum Photonics.

“Dr. Bouchard worked with my group in 2018,” says Marcus Huber, Vienna University of Technology professor and group leader at the Erwin Schrödinger Center for Quantum Science & Technology. “Just before his arrival, we started an independent lab in a predominantly theory-focused group. I was delighted to host Dr. Bouchard, an experimental PhD student at the time, hoping he could support my experimental postdoc in the lab. Dr. Bouchard, however, far exceeded my most optimistic expectations. Not only was he able to organize the lab, relentlessly fixing lots of starting problems, he actively engaged with the entire group, contributing to theory discussions and helped my entire team to bridge the gap between experiment and theory. In addition, he came up with his own independent idea which we discussed and implemented together in record time, leading to a swift first-author publication on measuring radial modes with high fidelity. He also took on the co-supervision of master’s students and became a valued group member. Indeed, he was instrumental in some of our early breakthrough work in the lab. Looking back, it is hard to believe he only spent three months in the group. I am not at all surprised to see him becoming an early-career leader in the field, one whom many turn to for understanding the cutting-edge questions of structured light and quantum photonics.”

Meet the other 2025 SPIE Society Award recipients.

Read more about Frédéric Bouchard and the SPIE Early Career Achievement Award – Industry/Government Focus.