We consider QED with strong external backgrounds that are concentrated in restricted space areas. The latter backgrounds represent a kind of spatial x-electric potential steps for charged particles. They can create particles from the vacuum, the Klein paradox being closely related to this process. We describe a canonical quantization of the Dirac field with x-electric potential step in terms of adequate in- and out-creation and annihilation operators that allow one to have consistent particle interpretation of the physical system under consideration and develop a nonperturbative (in the external field) technics to calculate scattering, reflection, and electron-positron pair creation. We resume the physical impact of this development.
Electron-positron pair creation in low-energy collisions of heavy bare nuclei