Abstract Advances in ultrafast laser technology and nanofabrication have enabled a new class of particle accelerator based upon miniaturized laser-driven photonic structures. However, developing a useful accelerator based on this approach requires control of the particle dynamics at field intensities approaching the damage limit. We measure acceleration in a fused silica dielectric laser accelerator driven by fields of up to 9 GV m −1 and observe a record 1.8 GV m −1 in the accelerating mode. At these intensities the dielectric is driven beyond its linear response and self-phase modulation changes the phase velocity of the accelerating mode, reducing the average gradient to 850 MeV m −1 . We show that free-space optics can be used to compensate this dephasing and demonstrate that tailoring the laser phase and amplitude can facilitate optimization of the beam dynamics. This could enable MeV scale energy gain in a single stage and pave the way towards applications in scientific, industrial, and medical fields.