Micrometre

"Micron" redirects here. For other uses, see Micron (disambiguation).

"Microscale" redirects here. For other uses, see Microscale (disambiguation).

For the measuring instrument, see Micrometer (device). For the unit of molar concentration, μM (micromolar), see Molar concentration.

Micrometre
A 6 μm diameter carbon filament above a 50 μm diameter human hair
General information
Unit system	metric
Unit of	length
Symbol	μm
Conversions
1 μm in ...	... is equal to ...
SI units	10−6 m
Natural units	1.8897×104 a0
imperial/US units	3.2808×10−6 ft, 3.9370×10−5 in

The micrometre (international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: μm) or micrometer (American spelling), also commonly known as a micron, is an SI derived unit of length equalling 1×10⁻⁶ metre (SI standard prefix "micro-" = 10⁻⁶); that is, one millionth of a metre (or one thousandth of a millimetre, 0.001 mm, or about 0.00004 inch).

The nearest smaller common SI unit is the nanometre, equivalent to one one-thousandth of a micrometre, or one billionth of a metre (0.000000001 m).

The micrometre is a common unit of measurement for wavelengths of infrared radiation as well as sizes of biological cells and bacteria, and for grading wool by the diameter of the fibres. The width of a single human hair ranges from approximately 20 to 200 μm. The longest human chromosome, chromosome 1, is approximately 10 μm in length.

Examples

How big is 1 micrometre?

Between 1 μm and 10 μm:

• 1–10 μm – length of a typical bacterium
• 3–8 μm – width of strand of spider web silk
• 5 μm – length of a typical human spermatozoon's head
• 10 μm – Size of fungal hyphae
• about 10 μm – size of a fog, mist, or cloud water droplet

For more examples of things measuring 1 to 10 micrometres, see Orders of magnitude (length) § 1 micrometre.

Between 10 μm and 100 μm:

• about 10–12 μm – thickness of plastic wrap (cling wrap)
• 10 to 55 μm – width of wool fibre
• 17 to 181 μm – diameter of human hair
• 70 to 180 μm – thickness of paper

For more examples of things measuring 10 to 100 micrometres, see Orders of magnitude (length) § 10 micrometres.

SI standardization

The term micron and the symbol μ were officially accepted for use in isolation to denote the micrometre in 1879, but officially revoked by the International System of Units (SI) in 1967. This became necessary because the older usage was incompatible with the official adoption of the unit prefix micro-, denoted μ, during the creation of the SI in 1960.

In the SI, the systematic name micrometre became the official name of the unit, and μm became the official unit symbol.

Additionally, in American English, the use of "micron" helps differentiate the unit from the micrometer, a measuring device, because the unit's name in mainstream American spelling is a homograph of the device's name. In spoken English, they may be distinguished by pronunciation, as the name of the measuring device is often stressed on the second syllable (/maɪˈkrɒmɪtər/ my-KROM-it-ər), whereas the systematic pronunciation of the unit name, in accordance with the convention for pronouncing SI units in English, places the stress on the first syllable (/ˈmaɪkroʊˌmiːtər/ MY-kroh-meet-ər).

The plural of micron is normally microns, though micra was occasionally used before 1950.

Symbol

See also: Micro- § Symbol encoding in character sets

The official symbol for the SI prefix micro- is a Greek lowercase mu. In Unicode, there is also a micro sign with the code point U+00B5 (µ), distinct from the code point U+03BC (μ) of the Greek letter lowercase mu. According to the Unicode Consortium, the Greek letter character is preferred, but implementations must recognize the micro sign as well. Most fonts use the same glyph for the two characters.

See also

• Metric prefix
• Metric system
• Orders of magnitude (length)
• Wool measurement

External links

• The dictionary definition of micrometre at Wiktionary