One of the main research area investigated by the LULI teams is inertial fusion plasma physics, from all angles: under-dense plasma-laser interaction, laser-produced plasma hydrodynamics and equations of state at high pressure, atomic physics and atomic kinetics in hot plasmas and study of their radiative properties in NLTE conditions, as well as various topics related to exploration of alternative fusion schemes, such as fast ignition and shock ignition, in the framework of the PHARE consortium.
Nevertheless, research studies conducted at LULI become diversified to cover many other fields related to hot plasmas: study of the high energy density matter and applications in astrophysics (radiative shocks, jets, ...) and in planetology (determination of the iron melting point, ...) in the framework of the MHEDOC consortium, study of the warm and dense matter(determination of transport coefficients in these yet unexplored temperature-density regimes, of fast ion stopping powers, ...), generation and optimization of intense particle and radiation sources, as well as investigation of their applications, study of radiation-matter interaction and of materias under shock loading.These studies is based on the development of numerous experimental techniques and diagnostic methods, with more and more advanced spatial or temporal resolution: x-ray Thomson scattering, x-ray diffraction, proton radiography / deflectometry, ...