Time
Scales: What is a femtosecond?
Let's
start with understanding the time scale in which we are working.
We need
to use time units that may be unfamiliar to you. Let's get
an appreciation of these very unusual time scales.
millisecond
1x10-3 second
microsecond 1x10-6 second
nanosecond 1x10-9second
picosecond 1x10-12 second
femtosecond 1x10-15 second
In other
words, a femtosecond is a million times shorter than a nanosecond.
Yes, that's very fast. It's "ultrafast". A femtosecond
is more than a million times shorter than the several nanosecond
duration pulses used in "traditional" industrial
lasers micromachining systems. A million times shorter!
In the
mathematician's lexicon, a femtosecond is 1x10-15 seconds.
In words, it's a quadrillionth of a second.
Still
confused about these incredible time scales? Here is another
way to look at it. How
"short" is a femtosecond?
