teravolts

Teravolts, symbol TV, is the unit of electrical potential difference equal to 10^12 volts in the International System of Units (SI). The volt measures the potential energy difference per unit charge, so a potential difference of 1 TV would impart 10^12 joules of energy to one coulomb of charge (E = qV).

Teravolts are rarely encountered in practical engineering. Common power systems operate at kilovolts to a few megavolts, orders of magnitude below teravolts. Devices or concepts described as teravolt-scale are typically theoretical or belong to specialized areas such as pulsed-power research, extreme astrophysical considerations, or hypothetical large-scale accelerators.

In theoretical discussions, teravolts may appear when considering extreme potentials needed for certain thought experiments or to illustrate limits of insulation and vacuum technology. A field of 1 TV per meter would produce an electric field of 10^12 V/m, vastly exceeding breakdown strengths of air and most materials, and would require near-perfect vacuum and advanced engineering to suppress discharge.

Energy considerations are often discussed in electronvolts or teraelectronvolts for particles, which relates to energy per particle rather than a single voltage across a circuit. It is common to describe high-energy scales in TeV per particle in particle physics, while teravolts describe the potential difference aspect and are typically used in theoretical or hypothetical contexts rather than everyday measurements.