Hertz to Terahertz (Hz to THz)

1 hertz equals 1×10⁻¹² terahertz exactly.

1 hertz = 1×10⁻¹² terahertz

How to convert hertz to terahertz

To convert hertz to terahertz, multiply the number of hertz by 1×10⁻¹². This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply terahertz by 1,000,000,000,000.

terahertz = hertz × 1×10⁻¹²

Example: 10 hertz = 1×10⁻¹¹ terahertz.

About these units

Hertz (Hz)

Metric (SI)Current unit

The SI unit of frequency: one cycle per second. Named after Heinrich Hertz.

Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1857 to 1894) was a German physicist who, in experiments between 1886 and 1889, produced and detected radio waves with a spark-gap transmitter and a loop receiver. He showed that they travel at the speed of light and can be polarised, reflected and refracted, confirming Maxwell's theory. Asked about uses for them, he is said to have replied, Nothing, I guess. The International Electrotechnical Commission established the name hertz in 1935, and the CGPM adopted it in 1960, replacing cycles per second.

One hertz is one cycle per second, equal to s to the minus one. A clock ticking once a second runs at 1 Hz, a human heart at rest beats at around 1.2 Hz, and young ears hear roughly 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. The SI treats cycle itself as not a unit, and the hertz applies only to periodic events, whereas the becquerel counts random radioactive decays, even though both are one per second. The second is now defined by fixing the caesium frequency at exactly 9,192,631,770 hertz.

The hertz is the reference unit for frequency on this site.

Sources: Wikipedia: Hertz; Wikipedia: Heinrich Hertz; BIPM: SI Brochure, 9th edition

Terahertz (THz)

Metric (SI)Current unit

10¹² hertz. Infrared radiation lies at tens of terahertz.

A trillion cycles each second is the scale where electronics meets optics. The terahertz, 10 to the power 12 hertz, takes its base unit from Heinrich Hertz, the physicist who gave conclusive proof that electromagnetic waves exist. The IEC established the name hertz in 1935, and the CGPM adopted it in 1960, replacing cycles per second and its multiples such as kilocycles and megacycles.

Radiation between 0.1 and 10 THz, with wavelengths from 3 mm down to 30 micrometres, lies between microwaves and far infrared. For years this stretch was called the terahertz gap, because practical sources and detectors were hard to build. Today it is used for security screening, spectroscopy and imaging, and has been proposed for fast wireless links. Infrared light spans roughly tens of terahertz, and visible light is about 400 to 790 THz.

1 terahertz = 1,000,000,000,000 hertz (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Hertz; Wikipedia: Terahertz radiation; Wikipedia: Orders of magnitude (frequency)

Related conversions

See all frequency units.