Convert Drop (drop) to Attoliter (aL) instantly.
About these units
Drop (drop)
The drop is one of the oldest fluid measures and originally referred simply to the amount of liquid that naturally forms at the end of a dripping vessel. Because drop size depends on viscosity, surface tension, temperature, and orifice size, early medicine found drops inconsistent and unreliable. Modern medicine and chemistry sometimes define a drop as 0.05 mL, but this is only a convention used for standardized droppers—real drops can vary significantly. Despite its imprecision, the drop survives in everyday language, aromatherapy, essential oils, and household instructions ("add a few drops"). It exemplifies humanity's earliest attempts to quantify small volumes before scientific instrumentation enabled precise micro-measurement.
Attoliter (aL)
An attoliter is a staggering 10⁻¹⁸ liters, placing it firmly in the realm of molecular and nanoscale science. This unimaginably small volume corresponds to spaces comparable to the inside of viruses, nanopores, or clusters of biomolecules. Cutting-edge technologies like nano-droplet reactors, atomic force microscopy, and high-precision spectroscopy rely on attoliters to describe reaction chambers or sample sizes. The attoliter is so small that even a single bacterial cell has a volume approximately one million attoliters. This makes the unit essential for exploring the physical limits of chemical reactions and biological processes.