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A picosecond (abbreviated as ps) is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to 10 or 1⁄1 000 000 000 000 (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 31,688.76 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 femtoseconds, or 1/1000 nanoseconds. Because the next SI unit is 1000 times larger, measurements of 10 and 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 10 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 (approximately 3 x 10 m/s) to determine the distance traveled. 1 THz is in the far infrared.
• 1 picosecond – time taken by light in vacuum to travel approximately 0.30 mm
• 1 picosecond – half-life of a bottom quark
• ~1 picosecond – lifetime of a single H
  ₃O
  (hydronium) 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 (845 GHz, as of 2006)
• 1.7 picoseconds – rotational correlation time of water
• 3.3 picoseconds (approximately) – time taken for light to travel 1 millimeter
• 10 picoseconds after the Big Bang – electromagnetism separates from the other fundamental forces
• 34 picoseconds – signal rise time (20% to 80%) of a SFP+ transmitter for 10 Gigabit Ethernet.
• 10 to 150 picoseconds – rotational correlation times of a molecule (184 g/mol) from hot to frozen water
• 100 picoseconds – Unit Interval of a 10 Gbit/s serial communication link, such as USB 3.1.
• 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 to complete a processing cycle

See also

• SI unit
• Second
• Nanosecond
• Microsecond
• Millisecond
• Jiffy (time)
• Orders of magnitude (time)

References

1. "Trillion-frame-per-second video". Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved 2014-03-06.
2. "Ultra high speed CCD cameras capture the motion of light". Stanford Computer Optics. Retrieved 2014-03-06.
3. "Lifetime of single hydronium (H3O+) ion at 20°C". BioNumbers. Retrieved 2011-10-10.
4. James E. Kloeppel (2006-12-11). "World's Fastest Transistor Approaches Goal of Terahertz Device".
5. Lankhorst, D.; Schriever, J.; Leyte, J. C. (1982). "Determination of the Rotational Correlation Time of Water by Proton NMR Relaxation in H217O and Some Related Results". Berichte der Bunsengesellschaft für physikalische Chemie. 86 (3): 215–221. doi:10.1002/bbpc.19820860308.
6. SFF Committee. "SFF-8431 Specifications for Enhanced Small Form Factor Pluggable Module SFP+" (PDF).
7. Bulla, I.; Törmälä, P.; Lindberg, J. J.; Mikalsen, Ø.; Southern, J. T.; Edlund, K.; Eliasen, M.; Herskind, C.; Laursen, T.; Pedersen, P. M. L. (1975). "Spin Probe Studies on the Dynamic Structure of Dimethyl Sulfoxide-Water Mixtures". Acta Chemica Scandinavica. 29a: 89–92. doi:10.3891/acta.chem.scand.29a-0089.
8. "Universal Serial Bus 3.1 Specification" (PDF).

External links

• National Institute for Standards and Technology Glossary

• Orders of magnitude (time)