Convert Barn (b (area)) to Square Centimeter (cm²) instantly.
About these units
Barn (b (area))
The barn is an area unit used almost exclusively in nuclear and particle physics, equal to 10⁻²⁸ square meters. Despite its incredibly tiny size, the barn emerged from humorous origins: early nuclear physicists joked that certain atomic nuclei were "as big as a barn" compared to the particles trying to hit them. The barn quantifies interaction cross-sections—essentially probabilities of particles colliding or interacting with nuclei. Because fundamental forces operate at extremely small scales, typical cross-section values lie in the microbarn, nanobarn, or picobarn range. The barn is essential for describing reaction rates in particle accelerators, nuclear reactors, and astrophysical processes such as stellar fusion.
Square Centimeter (cm²)
A square centimeter is the area of a square 1 cm per side. It is widely used in medicine, biology, and materials science because it provides a practical scale for human-sized and laboratory-sized areas. Dermatologists measure wound sizes in cm², biologists quantify cell culture plates in cm², and materials engineers specify surface treatments, coatings, and cross-sections using this unit. The cm² offers an intuitive middle ground between mm² (too small for many biological phenomena) and m² (too large for typical laboratory work), making it a universal unit in the sciences.