Melbourne, Australia

Shaban B.
Sulejman

Photonics researcher & engineer·School of Physics, University of Melbourne

I design ultrathin nanostructured surfaces that compute with light — performing optical operations directly in hardware, without bulky components or digital post-processing. My work takes meta-optics out of the lab and into biomedical, environmental and agricultural sensing.

Get in touch Read the research
Shaban B. Sulejman in University of Melbourne PhD academic dress
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About

I work at the intersection of nanophotonics and applied optical sensing. My technical foundation is in meta-optics — engineering surfaces thinner than a wavelength of light so that the optics themselves do the computation, rather than the software downstream.

The motivation is access. Microscopes and optical instruments have been indispensable to science for centuries, but their bulk and cost keep them confined to well-equipped laboratories — which means the places that could benefit most from advanced imaging, rural and remote communities among them, are the least likely to have it. Shrinking the optics is how that changes.

The central contribution of my research has been to establish tunable metasurfaces as dynamic optical computing platforms rather than static components — and then to apply them where they solve a real measurement problem: label-free cancer imaging, nanoplastic detection in water, and non-invasive sex determination in poultry hatcheries.

I completed my PhD in Physics at the University of Melbourne within TMOS, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems, supervised by Professor Ann Roberts. My thesis was nominated for the Chancellor's Prize for Excellence in the PhD Thesis and the Bragg Gold Medal for Excellence in Physics. I've since held a Fulbright placement at the City University of New York with Professor Andrea Alù, and been an invited speaker at Harvard University and the University of Stuttgart.

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Research

Four threads, one idea: put the computation in the optics.

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All-optical image processing

Tunable and reconfigurable metasurfaces that perform edge detection and phase contrast in hardware. Includes the first thermally reconfigurable image-processing metasurfaces built with phase-change materials.

  • Metasurfaces
  • Phase-change materials
  • Optical computing
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Biomedical & label-free imaging

Infrared multimodal microscopy platforms that switch between phase contrast and bright field, imaging unstained prostate cancer cells and breast tissue — built with clinical and commercial pathology partners.

  • Phase microscopy
  • Point-of-care
  • Clinical samples
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Environmental sensing

An optical sieve for detecting, sizing and counting nanoplastics — the first metasurface platform for the task, surpassing resolution limits of conventional analytical instruments.

  • Nanoplastics
  • Water quality
  • Nature Photonics
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Agricultural sensing

Leading optical system development for non-invasive in-ovo sex determination using fluorescence lifetime imaging, in partnership with Australian Eggs — designed against hatchery throughput and cost-per-egg requirements.

  • Fluorescence lifetime
  • Industry-partnered
  • Commercialisation
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Experience

  1. 2026 — Present

    Research Fellow · Lead Entrepreneur

    School of Physics, University of Melbourne · TMOS

    • Lead the optical system development and commercialisation pathway for non-invasive in-ovo gender determination, in partnership with Australian Eggs.
    • Translate industry requirements — throughput, cost per egg — into the specifications the optical system is built and tested against.
    • Continue meta-optics research on all-optical feature recognition and single-shot birefringence imaging.
    • Optical design
    • Instrumentation
    • Industry partnership
  2. Jan — Jun 2025

    Fulbright Visiting Researcher

    Advanced Science Research Center, City University of New York

    • Five-month placement under Professor Andrea Alù, Founding Director of the Photonics Initiative.
    • Conceived and led an independent program on metasurfaces for all-optical feature recognition, coordinating work across CUNY and Melbourne.
    • Fulbright Future Scholarship
  3. 2022 — 2025

    PhD Candidate in Physics

    School of Physics, University of Melbourne · TMOS

    • Designed, fabricated and characterised tunable metasurface platforms for all-optical image processing.
    • Published eight refereed articles during candidature — five as first or co-first author — in Nature Photonics, Nature Communications and Small.
    • Established and coordinated international collaborations across CUNY, the University of Stuttgart, RMIT, ANU, Dorevitch Pathology, St Vincent's Hospital and the Florey Institute.
    • Nanofabrication
    • Computational modelling
    • Experiment
  4. 2020 — 2022

    Teaching & research roles

    School of Physics, University of Melbourne

    • Tutor, laboratory demonstrator and assessment marker across first-year physics, special relativity & electromagnetism, and electrodynamics.
    • Laby Research Scholar — designed nanostructures for banknote anti-counterfeiting with the Reserve Bank of Australia.
  5. 2013 — Present

    Event DJ & Master of Ceremonies

    Self-employed

    • Have run an event services business for over a decade — client acquisition, pricing, contracting and delivery for weddings, galas and private events.
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Selected publications

Ten refereed journal articles and eight conference proceedings. Full list on ORCID →

  1. Nature Photonics2025

    Optical sieve for nanoplastic detection, sizing and counting

    D. Ludescher, L. Wesemann, J. Schwab, J. Karst, S. B. Sulejman, M. Ubl, B. O. Clarke, A. Roberts, H. Giessen & M. Hentschel

    First metasurface-based platform for nanoplastic detection and sizing, extending nanophotonics into environmental sensing.

    34 citations Read
  2. Nature Communications2024

    Reconfigurable image processing metasurfaces with phase-change materials

    M. Cotrufo†, S. B. Sulejman†, L. Wesemann†, M. A. Rahman, M. Bhaskaran, A. Roberts & A. Alù

    Thermally reconfigurable metasurfaces for all-optical edge detection — ranked among the journal's top 20 Physics publications of 2024.

    147 citations Read
  3. Small2026

    Polarisation-dependent elliptical and rectangular Mie voids

    S. Arslan†, S. B. Sulejman†, S. Klein, J. Haener, J. Schwab, D. Ludescher, L. Wesemann, A. Roberts, H. Giessen & M. Hentschel

    Read
  4. ACS Photonics2025

    Metasurfaces for infrared multimodal microscopy: phase contrast and bright field

    S. B. Sulejman, L. Wesemann, M. McCormack, J. Meng, J. A. Hutchison, N. Priscilla, G. McColl, K. Read, W. Sim, A. A. Sukhorukov, K. B. Crozier & A. Roberts

    Read
  5. ACS Photonics2024

    New avenues for phase imaging: optical metasurfaces

    N. Priscilla†, S. B. Sulejman†, A. Roberts & L. Wesemann

    Read
  6. Scientific Reports2023

    Thin film notch filters as platforms for biological image processing

    S. B. Sulejman†, N. Priscilla†, L. Wesemann, W. S. L. Lee, J. Lou, E. Hinde, T. J. Davis & A. Roberts

    Read

† Equal first authorship

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Awards & honours

A selection from more than thirty competitive scholarships, prizes and awards.

Invited seminars

Harvard University · University of Stuttgart

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Education

  1. 2022 — 2025

    Doctor of Philosophy — Physics

    University of Melbourne

    Thesis: Metasurfaces for tunable all-optical image processing. Supervised by Prof. Ann Roberts, Dr Lukas Wesemann, Prof. Ken Crozier and Prof. Andrey Sukhorukov within TMOS.

  2. 2020 — 2021

    Master of Science — Physics

    University of Melbourne · First class honours

    Thesis: Single-pixel ghost imaging with classical correlations and optical metasurfaces.

  3. 2017 — 2019

    Bachelor of Science — Mathematical Physics

    University of Melbourne · First class honours

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Get in touch

I'm always glad to talk about meta-optics, optical sensing, industry collaborations or commercialisation. Email is the best way to reach me.

University sulejmans@unimelb.edu.au Personal shabzsulejman@gmail.com LinkedIn /in/shaban-sulejman ORCID 0000-0003-0992-1095 TMOS Centre profile