Supervisor: Peter Balling

High Harmonic Generation is a phenomenon by which a high intensity laser pulse is sent through a non-linear medium that produces harmonics of the original laser frequency. This scientific field has been studied intensively both experimentally and theoretically using a plethora of gases since the 1990’s. In the beginning of this decade, high harmonic generation was discovered from a solid medium, which has since been the subject of much interest both experimentally and theoretically. Although the phenomenon is seemingly almost identical to that of gas phase high harmonic generation, it has been found that the driving mechanisms behind solid state high harmonic generation is fundamentally different from that in the gas phase. The search for understanding this phenomenon in detail has been the subject of many scientific endeavours. In particular, experimental physicists have made the ground work for using high harmonic spectra to make time dependent measurements of the band structures of solids at high pressure.