Light-amplified Landau-Zener conductivity in gapped graphene monolayers: a simulacrum of photo-catalyzed vacuum instability

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that in gapped graphene, a superposition of high-frequency and strong electric fields significantly enhances electron tunneling and current, effectively simulating the Schwinger mechanism in quantum electrodynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of photo-catalyzed Landau-Zener tunneling in gapped graphene, linking it to vacuum instability phenomena in QED.

Findings

Photo-catalyzed current exceeds strong field current by several orders of magnitude.

Conditions for optimal tunneling and residual current are derived.

The phenomenon can be experimentally observed in graphene, simulating QED effects.

Abstract

Interband transitions of electrons in a gapped graphene monolayer are highly stimulated near the Fermi surface when a high-frequency electric wave of weak intensity and a strong constant electric field are superposed in the plane of the flake. We consider this phenomenon equivalent to the Franz-Keldysh effect, paying particular attention to the regime where the photon energy linked to the fast-oscillating field is just below the graphene gap, so that the quantum transitions still occur through tunneling effects while being facilitated by the one-photon absorption channel. In the considered parameter regime the photo-catalyzed current linked to the described setup is shown to exceed the one driven by the strong field solely by several orders of magnitude. Conditions to relieve the impact of the field's finite extension are discussed, and a formula for the residual current density is derived. The robustness of our assessment supports the viability of detecting this phenomenon in graphene, thus providing a simulation of the dynamically-assisted Schwinger mechanism in QED.