How many seconds is a femtosecond?

Answer 1

A femtosecond is the SI unit of time equal to 10-15 of a second. That is one quadrillionth, or one millionth of one billionth of a second. For context, a femtosecond is to a second, what a second is to about 31.7 million years.

The word femtosecond is formed by the SI prefix femto and the SI unit second. Its symbol is fs.

A femtosecond is equal to 1000 attoseconds, or 1/1000 picosecond. Because the next higher SI unit is 1000 times larger, times of 10-14 and 10-13 seconds are typically expressed as tens or hundreds of femtoseconds.

• Shorter times

• Typical time steps for molecular dynamics simulations are on the order of 1 fs.
• The waves of visible light oscillate with a period (reciprocal frequency) of about 20 femtoseconds [lambda/c = (600x10^-8)/(3x10^8) = 20x10^-15]. The precise period depends on the energy of the photons, which determines their color. (See wave-particle duality) This time can be calculated by dividing the wavelength of the light by the speed of light (approximately 3 x 108 m/s) to determine the time required for light to travel that distance.
  • 13 fs -- cycle time for 390 nanometre light, at the transition between violet visible light and ultraviolet
  • 25.7 fs -- cycle time for 770 nanometre light, at the transition between red visible light and near-infrared
• 200 fs -- the swiftest chemical reactions, such as the reaction of pigments in an eye to light
• 300 fs -- the duration of a vibration of the atoms in an iodine molecule

• Longer times