Laser driven accelerators, in which particles are accelerated by the electric field of a plasma wave driven by an intense laser, have demonstrated accelerating

Laser-wakefield accelerators (LWFA) can produce electricfields of order 10-100 GV/m suitable for acceleration of electrons torelativistic energies. The wakefiel

Twenty-five years ago, a new method was proposed for the acceleration of electrons to high energies using lasers. The simplest implementation of a so-called las

This thesis covers the few-cycle laser-driven acceleration of electrons in a laser-generated plasma. This process, known as laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA),