SRI's Materials Research Laboratory develops applied coating technologies for corrosion and oxidation resistance, electronic materials, systems for energy generation and pollution abatement, and heterogeneous catalysts.

This interdisciplinary group of materials scientists, metallurgists, electrochemists, physical chemists, and chemical engineers has broad experience and an excellent record in working with industry and government.

Within the laboratory, SRI's Center for Fracture Physics is advancing the state of practice in failure analysis by developing new methods to quantify and analyze fracture surface topography. These methods reconstruct the history of a crack to be reconstructed and retroactively determine the loading conditions. The Center is also extending the lifetime of aging systems such as aircraft, power plants, and electronics.