Professor Pei’s group is devoted to advance engineering materials and processing technology for smart manufacturing of complex materials and products, with a special focus on laser materials processing (additive manufacturing, welding, cladding, ultra-short pulse laser ablation), physical vapor and magnetron sputter deposition processes, nanofabrication, surface engineering and tribology. The research currently performed by the group covers the development and fabrication of self-healing materials, high entropy alloys, nano-structured materials for energy storage, functional coatings and surface modification. His research approach involves fundamental understanding and application of surface engineering and production engineering on diverse materials systems in fields such as automotive industry, chemical, manufacturing, biomedical and health care.