Professor John Murphy MA DPhil CEng CPhys FInstP FIMMM SFHEA

• Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (FIMMM), 2024
• Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), 2023
• Fellow of the Institute of Physics (FInstP), 2017
• Chartered Engineer (CEng), 2012
• PGDipLATHE in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, University of Oxford , 2011
• Chartered Physicist (CPhys), 2008
• DPhil in Materials Science, University of Oxford, 2006
• MA, University of Oxford, 2006
• BA in Physics, University of Oxford, 2003

John joined the School of Engineering at the University of Birmingham as Chair in Electronic Materials in September 2025. He is building up a research programme in electronic materials, working on topics such as silicon-based photovoltaics, recycling of solar panels, 2D materials, and devices for THz modulation. He is setting up new cleanroom-based facilities, including atomic layer deposition, and a dedicated characterisation laboratory.

John’s independent academic career began in the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford with the award of a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship in 2008. At Oxford, he held Junior Research Fellowships at Wolfson and St Anne’s Colleges. He was also a Lecturer and Director of Studies in Materials Science at St Anne's College. He moved to the University of Warwick in 2013, where he was an Assistant Professor in WMG and then in the School of Engineering.

He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2015, to Reader in June 2018, and to Professor of Electronic Materials in December 2018. He held several leadership roles in the School of Engineering at the University of Warwick, including Discipline Stream Leader for Mechanical, Materials and Process Engineering (2021-2023), Deputy Head of Department (2022-2023), and Head of Department (2023-2025).

He has been principal investigator of externally funded research grants with a value (100% FEC) of £3.6m, with a further £12.6m as co-investigator. He has been principal investigator of four EPSRC grants, including collaborative activities with Oxford, Manchester, and Exeter. He was a co-investigator and management committee member of the EPSRC Supergen Solar Network+. He is currently a co-investigator of the EPSRC Terabotics Programme Grant.

His work had led to >115 publications and he has personally given >70 conference presentations. He has given invited talks at most of the leading international conferences in his research field, including the Gordon Research Conference on Defects in Semiconductors, the Electrochemical Society (ECS), the Materials Research Society (MRS), Gettering and Defect Engineering in Semiconductor Technology (GADEST), the NREL Workshop on Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells & Modules, the International Conference on Defects in Semiconductors (ICDS), and the JSPS Silicon Symposium. He chaired the 15^th GADEST conference, the 2015 Recent Appointees in Materials Science conference, and the “Materials research for group IV semiconductors” symposium at the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS).

He graduated with an MA in Physics (2003) and a DPhil in Materials Science (2006) from the University of Oxford. He holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (PGDipLATHE) from the University of Oxford (2011). He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (FInstP), a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (FIMMM), a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), a Chartered Engineer (CEng), and a Chartered Physicist (CPhys).

John is an experienced PhD supervisor interested in supervising motivated students working in topics including:

• Silicon materials for photovoltaics.
• Atomic layer deposition of metal-oxide dielectrics for semiconductor surface passivation.
• Recycling of solar panels.
• 2D materials for optoelectronics (particularly transition metal dichalcogenides).
• Materials for modulation of THz radiation.
• Charge carrier lifetime measurement in semiconductor materials based on techniques such as photoconductance decay, photoluminescence or photoexcited muon spin spectroscopy.

Funding is potentially available for suitably qualified home (UK) PhD students. Interested candidates should email j.d.murphy@bham.ac.uk with a CV and short statement of how their interests align with those of Professor Murphy’s research group.

John is a materials scientist, whose work includes aspects of physics, chemistry, and engineering. His research group's work is primarily experimental and focusses on electronic materials for a range of applications including photovoltaics, optoelectronics, power electronics, and modulation of terahertz radiation. He is interested in the materials science of defects in the bulk of crystalline materials and in controlling the properties of surfaces as the nanoscale.

Materials of current interest include silicon, germanium, silicon carbide, and 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (particularly MoS₂). He has a growing research activity on the recycling of photovoltaic modules and developing more sustainable methods and materials for the fabrication of solar cells.

John is in the process of building up laboratory facilities at the University of Birmingham. These include characterisation facilities for measuring the properties of semiconductor materials and devices, such as photoconductance lifetime measurements, photoluminescence imaging, and Kelvin probe microscopy. Cleanroom-based facilities becoming available include atomic layer deposition (ALD). This enables the production of ultra-thin coatings (typically metal-oxides such as Al₂O₃, SiO₂ or HfO₂) which have uses in a wide range of applications including silicon photovoltaic cells, anodes for lithium-ion batteries, 2D materials for optoelectronics, and THz imaging for cancer detection.

External collaborators in the UK include groups at Exeter, Manchester, Oxford, Northumbria, Southampton, Warwick, and the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source. International collaborators include Fraunhofer ISE, ISFH, the Australian National University, and the University of New South Wales. Work is performed in strong collaboration with leading industrial partners.