A picosecond (abbreviated as ps) is a unit of time in the

International System of Units The International System of Units, known by the international abbreviation SI in all languages and sometimes pleonastically as the SI system, is the modern form of the metric system and the world's most widely used system of measurement. ...

(SI) equal to 10⁻¹² or (one trillionth) of a second. That is one trillionth, or one millionth of one millionth of a second, or 0.000 000 000 001 seconds. A picosecond is to one second as one second is to approximately 31,689 years. Multiple technical approaches achieve imaging within single-digit picoseconds: for example, the streak camera or intensified CCD (ICCD) cameras are able to picture the motion of light. One picosecond is equal to 1000

femtosecond A femtosecond is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to 10 or of a second; that is, one quadrillionth, or one millionth of one billionth, of a second. For context, a femtosecond is to a second as a second is to about 31 ...

s, or 1/1000 nanoseconds. Because the next SI unit is 1000 times larger, measurements of 10⁻¹¹ and 10⁻¹⁰ second are typically expressed as tens or hundreds of picoseconds. Some notable measurements in this range include: * 1.0 picoseconds (1.0 ps) – cycle time for electromagnetic frequency 1 terahertz (THz) (1 x 10¹² hertz), an inverse unit. This corresponds to a wavelength of 0.3 mm, as can be calculated by multiplying 1 ps by the

speed of light The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted , is a universal physical constant that is important in many areas of physics. The speed of light is exactly equal to ). According to the special theory of relativity, is the upper limit fo ...

(approximately 3 x 10⁸ m/s) to determine the distance traveled. 1 THz is in the far infrared. * 1 picosecond – time taken by light in a vacuum to travel approximately 0.30 mm * 1 picosecond – half-life of a bottom quark * ~1 picosecond – lifetime of a single (

hydronium In chemistry, hydronium (hydroxonium in traditional British English) is the common name for the aqueous cation , the type of oxonium ion produced by protonation of water. It is often viewed as the positive ion present when an Arrhenius acid ...

) ion in water at 20 °C * picoseconds to nanoseconds – phenomena observable by dielectric spectroscopy * 1.2 picoseconds – switching time of the world's fastest

transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch ...

(845 GHz, as of 2006) * 1.7 picoseconds - rotational correlation time of water * 3.3 picoseconds (approximately) – time taken for

light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 t ...

to travel 1 millimeter * 10 picoseconds after the Big Bang –

electromagnetism In physics, electromagnetism is an interaction that occurs between particles with electric charge. It is the second-strongest of the four fundamental interactions, after the strong force, and it is the dominant force in the interactions o ...

separates from the other fundamental forces * 34 picoseconds - signal rise time (20% to 80%) of a SFP+ transmitter for 10 Gigabit Ethernet. * 10–150 picoseconds – rotational correlation times of a molecule (184 g/mol) from hot to frozen water * 100 picoseconds -

Unit Interval In mathematics, the unit interval is the closed interval , that is, the set of all real numbers that are greater than or equal to 0 and less than or equal to 1. It is often denoted ' (capital letter ). In addition to its role in real analysis ...

of a 10 Gbps

serial communication In telecommunication and data transmission, serial communication is the process of sending data one bit at a time, sequentially, over a communication channel or computer bus. This is in contrast to parallel communication, where several bits a ...

link, such as

USB 3.1 USB 3.0, released in November 2008, is the third major version of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard for interfacing computers and electronic devices. Among other improvements, USB 3.0 adds the new transfer rate referred to as '' ...

. * 108.7827757 picoseconds – transition time between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom at absolute zero * 330 picoseconds (approximately) – the time it takes a common 3.0 GHz computer

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, a ...

to complete a processing cycle

References

External links

National Institute for Standards and Technology Glossary
{{Orders of magnitude seconds Orders of magnitude (time) fr:1 E-12 s

See also

References

External links