Signature of the Schwinger pair creation rate via radiation generated in graphene by a strong electric current

Abstract

Electron-hole pairs are copiously created by an applied electric field near the Dirac point in graphene or similar two-dimensional electronic systems. It was shown recently that for sufficiently large electric fields $E$ and ballistic times the $I\ensuremath{-}V$ characteristics become strongly nonlinear due to Schwinger's pair creation rate, proportional to ${E}^{3/2}$. Since there is no energy gap the radiation from the pairs' annihilation is enhanced. The spectrum of radiation is calculated and exhibits a maximum at $\ensuremath{\omega}=\sqrt{eE{v}_{g}/\ensuremath{\hbar}}$. The angular and polarization dependence of the emitted photons with respect to the graphene sheet is quite distinctive. For very large currents the recombination rate becomes so large that it leads to the second Ohmic regime due to radiation friction.