Electron-phonon instability in graphene revealed by global and local noise probes

Understanding nonequilibrium phenomena to effectively control it is an outstanding challenge in science and engineering. In a recent study, Trond. I. Andersen and colleagues at the departments of physics, chemistry, materials science and engineering in the USA, Japan and Canada used electricity to drive ultraclean graphene devices out-of-equilibrium and observe the manifested instability as enhanced current fluctuations and suppressed conductivity at microwave frequencies.