A picosecond (abbreviated as ps) is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to 10<sup>−12</sup> or (one trillionth) of a second. That is one trillionth, or one millionth of one millionth of a second, or 0.000&nbsp;000&nbsp;000&nbsp;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<sup>−11</sup> and 10<sup>−10</sup> 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), an inverse unit. This corresponds to a wavelength of 0.3&nbsp;mm, as can be calculated by multiplying 1&nbsp;ps by the speed of light (approximately 3 × 10<sup>8</sup> 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&nbsp;mm
  • 1 picosecond – half-life of a bottom quark
  • ~1 picosecond – lifetime of a single (hydronium) ion in water at 20&nbsp;°C
  • picoseconds to nanoseconds – phenomena observable by dielectric spectroscopy
  • 1.2 picoseconds – switching time of the world's fastest transistor (845&nbsp;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

  • National Institute for Standards and Technology Glossary

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