Pixels (CSS) to Nanometers (px to nm)

1 pixel (CSS) equals 264,583.3333 nanometers (rounded).

1 pixel (CSS) = 264,583.3333 nanometers

How to convert pixels (CSS) to nanometers

To convert pixels (CSS) to nanometers, multiply the number of pixels (CSS) by 264,583.3333. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply nanometers by 0.000003779527559 (rounded).

nanometers = pixels (CSS) × 264,583.3333

Example: 10 pixels (CSS) = 2,645,833.333 nanometers.

About these units

Pixel (CSS) (px)

Typography & screenCurrent unit

The CSS reference pixel, defined as 1/96 of an inch. Physical screens vary, but browsers use this value to convert pixels to print units.

Pixel is a contraction of picture element, itself built from pix, a 1930s shortening of pictures. The idea is older than the word: Paul Nipkow's 1888 German patent spoke of a Bildpunkt, or picture point, and the phrase picture element appears in US patents filed as early as 1911. Frederic C. Billingsley of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory published pixel in 1965, writing about scanned images from space probes to the Moon and Mars, and said he had learned it from Keith E. McFarland, who reported it was already in use around 1963.

A pixel in a photograph is a sample, not a fixed length, and screens vary widely in size. CSS therefore defines px as an abstract reference pixel of exactly 1/96 inch, based on the visual angle of one pixel on a 96 dpi device held at arm's length. The CSS specification gives that angle as about 0.0213 degrees for a nominal arm's length of 28 inches, which works out to about 0.26 mm. On sharper screens a single CSS pixel spans several device pixels. Earlier CSS versions did not fix the ratio, but too much existing content assumed 96 dpi.

1 pixel (CSS) = 0.0002645833333 meters (approximately).

Sources: W3C: CSS Values and Units Module Level 3, absolute lengths; Wikipedia: Pixel

Nanometer (nm)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One billionth of a meter. Used for the wavelength of light (visible light is about 400–700 nm) and for chip feature sizes.

Greek for dwarf gave nano- its name, and the nanometer was once called something clumsier: the millimicrometre, or more often the millimicron, written mμ, since it is a thousandth of a micrometer. The prefix nano- was among those officially adopted when SI prefixes were first introduced in 1960, and the nanometer grew into the standard unit for optics and microelectronics. It sits a factor of ten above the older ångström, which is 0.1 nm and is still used for atomic distances.

Visible light spans roughly 400 to 700 nm, which is why color and spectroscopy are quoted this way. A helium atom is about 0.06 nm across and a ribosome about 20 nm. Chip makers have used nanometers since the late 1980s in names for manufacturing generations such as 32 nm and 22 nm. Those are labels for successive generations in the industry roadmap, and they describe typical feature sizes rather than one exact measurement. Readers should also beware that nm is sometimes written informally for the nautical mile.

1 nanometer = 1×10⁻⁹ meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Nanometre; Wikipedia: Metric prefix; Wikipedia: Nautical mile

Related conversions

See all length units.