Mikrovolt

Mikrovolt is the unit of electrical potential equal to one-millionth of a volt, written with the symbol µV. It belongs to the SI system and is used to express very small voltages that arise in precision electronics, instrumentation, and biological signals. The prefix micro- denotes 10^-6, so 1 µV = 10^-6 V.

In relation to other voltage units, 1 µV is equal to 0.001 millivolts (mV), and 1 volt (V) equals 1,000,000 µV. This scale is commonly encountered when measuring tiny signals that must be amplified for analysis, such as sensor outputs or biomedical recordings.

Measurement and practical use: because microvolt signals are often close to the noise floor of many instruments, accurate measurement requires low-noise electronics, proper shielding, and careful grounding. Instrumentation amplifiers with high gain and wide dynamic range are typically used to bring microvolt-level signals into a readable range for data acquisition systems. Noise sources include thermal agitation, flicker noise, electromagnetic interference, and quantization effects in analog-to-digital converters.

Applications: microvolts appear in various fields, including biomedical engineering (for example, certain EEG and EMG components), precision metrology, and sensor technology. They are also relevant in material science experiments and electrochemical measurements where small potential differences indicate important processes.

History and nomenclature: the si-prefix micro- was adopted for voltages in scientific contexts in the 20th century, with microvolt becoming a standard unit for reporting very small electrical potentials.