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The milliwatt (mW) is equal to one thousandth (10−3) of a watt. A typical laser pointer outputs about five milliwatts of light power, whereas a typical hearing aid for people uses less than one milliwatt. Audio signals and other electronic signal levels are often measured in dBm, referenced to one milliwatt.
The petawatt (PW) is equal to one quadrillion (1015) watts and can be produced by the current generation of lasers for time-scales on the order of picoseconds (10−12 s). One such laser is the Lawrence Livermore's Nova laser, which achieved a power output of 1.25 PW (1.25×1015 W) by a process called chirped pulse amplification. The duration of the pulse was roughly 0.5 ps (5×10−13 s), giving a total energy of 600 J.