DEDICATION.................................. ii

For my mother and father, who taught me to ask questions and find answers. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Professor Karl Krushelnick, for his encourage-ment, foresight, and positive attitude. Thank you, also Karl, for teaching interesting courses, providing educational resources outside the classroom, and for granting so many opportunities to present within the scientific community. I could not have com-pleted my thesis research without the daily guidance and clever ideas of Dr. Anatoly Maksimchuk. Thank you, Professor Alec Thomas for enouraging us students to think, in theory. I feel very fortunate having had the opportunity to take your computational course and to teach with your guidance. My favorite part of the graduate experience was the training I received from Drs. Takeshi Matsuoka and Stefan Kneip. Takeshi, thank you for teaching me the way an experiment should be run. Stefan, thank you for teaching me the way an experiment should be planned. I am also thankful for the diligent work from the HERCULES laser staff, Drs. Vladimir Chvykov, Galina Kalinchenko, Victor Yanovsky, and Pasca