Megaelektronenvolt

Megaelektronenvolt (MeV) is a unit of energy equal to one million electronvolts. An electronvolt is the energy gained by an electron moving across a potential difference of one volt. Therefore, 1 MeV = 1,000,000 eV = 1.602176634×10^-13 joules.

MeV is standard in nuclear and particle physics to express energies of particles, gamma rays, and binding energies; it also appears in medical physics for proton and ion therapy beams. In practice, energy scales in this field are described using MeV or multiples such as keV and GeV.

The rest-mass energy of the electron is about 0.511 MeV, while the proton’s rest energy is about 938 MeV. Masses are often quoted as MeV/c^2, reflecting the relation E = mc^2 in relativistic contexts.

The term Megaelektronenvolt is the German name for the megaelectronvolt. The symbol MeV is the international designation. It is a non-SI unit but is accepted for use with the SI system and is widely used in scientific literature.

Typical contexts for MeV-scale energies include nuclear transition energies, particle-beam energies in accelerators, and high-energy photons in spectroscopy and imaging.