fA\text{fA}

femtoampere

Electric currentexact by definition

The femtoampere is 10⁻¹⁵ of an ampere, about 6240 electrons per second. It is the working floor of electrometers and picoammeters, used for ionisation chamber currents, photomultiplier dark current and gate leakage in low-power semiconductor test. The factor is exact, being an SI prefix.

Watch out: At femtoamperes the measurement is a battle against the fixture rather than the instrument. Surface leakage across a fingerprint on an insulator, triboelectric charge from a flexed cable and piezoelectric current from a stressed dielectric all exceed the signal, which is why guarded triaxial cable and a driven guard ring are standard practice.

1 fA\text{fA} 1.0000000e-15 A\text{A}

One femtoampere in every electric current unit

1femtoampere (fA)this unit
0.001picoampere (pA)
0.000001nanoampere (nA)
1.00000e-09microampere (μA)
1.00000e-12milliampere (mA)
1.00000e-15ampere (A)
1.00000e-18kiloampere (kA)
1.00000e-21megaampere (MA)