Dr Sophie Pain MRSC, MIMMM

Dr Sophie Pain

School of Engineering
Assistant Professor in Sustainable Materials
125th Anniversary Fellow

Contact details

Email
s.l.pain@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Sophie Pain is an Assistant Professor in Sustainable Materials in the School of Engineering and the School of Metallurgy and Materials. She is a 125th Anniversary Fellow and a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Engineering, University of Warwick, 2023
  • MSci in Chemistry with Industrial Experience and a Year in Computer Science, University of Birmingham, 2019

Biography

Dr Sophie Pain is an Assistant Professor in Sustainable Materials in the School of Engineering and the School of Metallurgy and Materials. She is also a 125th Anniversary Fellow and a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow.

Sophie has a PhD in Engineering from the University of Warwick, entitled “Enhancing electronic materials by chemical treatments and nanoscale dielectrics”, and an MSci in Chemistry from the University of Birmingham.

In 2024, Sophie was awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship (“Achieving sustainable solar: atomic manufacturing for recyclable photovoltaics”). She was an Assistant Professor (Research Focused) in the School of Engineering, University of Warwick until she joined University of Birmingham in 2026.

Postgraduate supervision

Dr Pain is interested in supervising PhD projects on silicon materials for photovoltaics, thin film growth via atomic layer deposition and photovoltaics sustainability/recycling. Previous PhD supervision has included atomic layer deposition for 2D materials/transition metal dichalcogenides, silicon battery anodes, and anti-soiling coatings. Future PhD opportunities will be advertised via findaphd.com.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Mou, S, Stantchev, RI, Saxena, S, Ou, H, Rane, S, Pain, SL, Murphy, JD, Hendry, E, Lloyd-Hughes, J & Pickwell-MacPherson, E 2026, 'All-fibre-coupled terahertz single-pixel imaging for biomedical applications', Nature Communications, vol. 17, 1571. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68290-x

Grant, NE, Yadav, A, Pain, SL, Wilkins, L, Khorani, E & Black, L 2026, 'A non-destructive method to infer the bulk lifetime in high-quality silicon wafers', Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, vol. 297, 114125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solmat.2025.114125

Pain, SL, Wilkins, L, Sharpe, MK, McAleese, CD, Hall, KJ, Murphy, JD & Grant, NE 2026, 'Hydrogen in aluminium oxide films grown for silicon surface passivation by plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition', Applied Surface Science, pp. 166660. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsusc.2026.166660

Tian, X, Renz, AB, Yildirim, MA, Melnyk, K, Iosifidis, N, Jefferies, R, Pain, S, Walker, D, Gott, JA, Agbo, NS, Taylor, P, Boccarossa, M, Maresca, L, Irace, A, Shah, VA, Antoniou, M, Mawby, PA & Gammon, PM 2026, 'Investigation of temperature-dependent oxide capacitance in paraelectric monoclinic doped HfO2/SiO2 gate stacks implemented on 4H-SiC', Applied Physics Letters, vol. 128, no. 14, 142904. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0315887

Yadav, A, Healy, BFM, Pain, SL, Khorani, E, Wratten, A, Murphy, JD & Grant, NE 2026, 'Localized Direct Metal-Silicon Contacts through Controlled Pinhole Formation in Si/Al2O3/HfO2 Stacks', ACS Applied Electronic Materials, vol. 8, no. 11, pp. 4564-4571. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaelm.6c00270

Willis, BL, Rigby, OM, Pain, SL, Grant, NE, Murphy, JD, Bonilla, RS & Beattie, NS 2026, 'Maximising environmental savings from silicon photovoltaics manufacturing to 2035', Nature Communications, vol. 17, 2311. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69165-x

Khorani, E, Pain, SL, Yadav, A, Hall, KJ, Niewelt, T, Grant, NE & Murphy, JD 2026, 'Metallisation-associated degradation of silicon coated with thin dielectric layers', Semiconductor Science and Technology, vol. 41, no. 5, 055031. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6641/ae66aa

Healy, BFM, Pain, SL, Grant, NE & Murphy, JD 2026, 'Stable photoluminescence enhancement in monolayer molybdenum disulfide by superacid treatment', Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology A: Vacuum, Surfaces, and Films, vol. 44, no. 3, 032201. https://doi.org/10.1116/6.0005357

Healy, BFM, Hall, KJ, Pain, SL, Grant, NE & Murphy, JD 2026, 'Superacid treatment of dielectric-encapsulated monolayer molybdenum disulfide for enhanced photoluminescence', Journal of Materials Chemistry C. https://doi.org/10.1039/d6tc02199a

Willis, BL, Rigby, OM, Pain, SL, Grant, NE, Murphy, JD, Bonilla, RS & Beattie, NS 2026, 'Sustainability outlook for leading silicon photovoltaic technologies from 2023–2034 in Europe', EPJ Photovoltaics, vol. 17, 16. https://doi.org/10.1051/epjpv/2026009

Yadav, A, Pain, SL, Grant, NE, Zhu, Y, Hameiri, Z, Thome, FT, Altermatt, PP, Lord, JS, Yokoyama, K & Murphy, JD 2026, 'Temperature-Dependent Carrier Lifetime in Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells Measured Using Photoexcited Muon Spin Spectroscopy', IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics. https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOTOV.2026.3724232

Pain, SL, Yadav, A, Walker, D, Grant, NE & Murphy, JD 2025, 'Atomic Layer Deposition of Hafnium Oxide Passivating Layers on Silicon: Impact of Precursor Selection', Physica Status Solidi - Rapid Research Letters, vol. 19, no. 1, 2400202. https://doi.org/10.1002/pssr.202400202

Healy, BFM, Pain, SL, Grant, NE & Murphy, J 2025, 'Direct thermal atomic layer deposition of high-κ dielectrics on monolayer MoS2: nucleation and growth', Nanoscale, vol. 17, no. 25, pp. 15436-15447. https://doi.org/10.1039/d5nr01144b

Romain, X, Wilshaw, PR, Stantchev, RI, Miao, T, Mou, S, Niewelt, T, Mcnab, S, Pain, SL, Grant, NE, Bonilla, RS, Pickwell-Macpherson, E & Murphy, JD 2025, 'Electrically Tunable Si-Based THz Photomodulator Using Dielectric/Polymer Surface Gating', IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology , vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 76-83. https://doi.org/10.1109/TTHZ.2024.3477983

Yadav, A, Pain, SL, Wilkins, L, Grant, NE, Lord, JS, Yokoyama, K & Murphy, JD 2025, 'Extracting surface and bulk recombination parameters for passivated silicon using photoexcited muon spin spectroscopy', Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 138, no. 13, 135701. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0288808

View all publications in research portal