The Charles Fabry laboratory is a joint research unit between Institut d'Optique Graduate School, the CNRS and the University Paris-Saclay. Organized into nine research groups with well-defined themes, it is the historical pillar of research within the Institut d'Optique Graduate School. The laboratory research covers a broad spectrum of topics in optics and photonics and their applications.

The Charles Fabry laboratory is therefore an interface laboratory between two CNRS institutes: the Institut de Physique and the Institut des Sciences de l'Ingénierie et des Systèmes.

The laboratory has a staff of around 140, including 18 CNRS researchers, 25 teacher-researchers from the Institut d'Optique Graduate School or Paris-Saclay and 22 research support staff (scientific or administrative). PhD students, post-docs and visitors account for more than half of the laboratory's staff. The laboratory is organised into nine research groups with well-defined themes, each of which has its own web pages.