\"Accelerating in the Future: Laser Driven Accelerator R&D at Berkeley,\"

Twenty-five years ago, a new method was proposed for the acceleration of electons to high energies using laser.  In work that brings promise of laser-driven particle acclerators dramatically closer to reality, we have recently produced high-quality electron beams with energy around 100 MeV ina fiber-like plasma channel of only a few millimeters long [C.C. R. Geddes et al., Nature 431,538-541 (2004).  This work offers the potential of shrinking accelerators from miles to meters in length.  With its unique femtosecond bunches and ulta-high gradient opens new applications ranging from from high energy physics to ultra-fast science to medical applications.  The experiments are done with the LOASIS laser system located at LBNL.  This powerful Ti:sapphire system was specifically designed to delover multiple pulses to two different target chambers, including electron acceleration to 1 GeV (or more), generation of intense THz radiation and femtosecond x-rays for material science experiments.  An overview will be presented of these experiments as well as the supporting theoretical research including simulations of the complex laser-plasma interactions.