Dephasing time in graphene due to interaction with flexural phonons

Konstantin S. Tikhonov, Wei L. Z. Zhao, Alexander M. Finkel'stein

Published 2015-05-18Version 1

We investigate decoherence of an electron in graphene caused by electron-flexural phonon interaction. We find out that flexural phonons can produce dephasing rate comparable to the electron-electron one. The problem appears to be quite special because there is a large interval of temperature where the dephasing induced by phonons can not be obtain using the golden rule. We evaluate this rate for a wide range of density ($n$) and temperature ($T$) and determine several asymptotic regions with temperature dependence crossing over from $\tau_{\phi }^{-1}\sim T^{2}$ to $\tau_{\phi}^{-1}\sim T$ when temperature increases. We also find $\tau_{\phi}^{-1}$ to be a non-monotonous function of $n$. These distinctive features of the new contribution can provide an effective way to identify flexural phonons in graphene through the electronic transport by measuring the weak localization corrections in magnetoresistance.