Convert Femtosecond (fs) to Picosecond (ps) instantly.
About these units
Femtosecond (fs)
A femtosecond equals 10⁻¹⁵ seconds, a staggering scale where fundamental molecular motions occur. Chemical bonds vibrate, break, and rearrange on femtosecond timescales. Ultrafast spectroscopy—pioneered by Ahmed Zewail, who won the Nobel Prize for this work—uses femtosecond laser pulses to "freeze" molecular reactions and observe them in real time. Femtosecond lasers allow extraordinary precision in surgery and microfabrication, producing minimal heat diffusion and ultraclean cuts. At this scale, time ceases to be a continuous blur and becomes granular in terms of molecular motion, giving rise to the field of femtochemistry and revolutionizing our understanding of reaction dynamics.
Picosecond (ps)
A picosecond equals 10⁻¹² seconds. At this timescale, even light travels only about 0.3 millimeters, making picoseconds vital in advanced optics, ultrafast laser systems, and femtochemistry. Picosecond lasers enable precision cutting in medical devices, microfabrication, and semiconductor processing. They also allow scientists to study vibrational modes of molecules and rapid electron transitions in materials. In telecommunications, picosecond precision is necessary for characterizing optical fiber dispersion, jitter, and photonic switching. At such rapid intervals, the boundaries of classical physics begin to blur, leading toward quantum mechanical interpretations of time and energy.