A TeV is a teraelectronvolt, i.e., it is 1012 electron volts, or 1,000,000,000,000 eV. An electronvolt is the amount energy gained or lost by an electron when it is accelerated by a electrical potential of one volt.

It requires 13.6 eV to remove the electron in a hydrogen atom to infinity.

The eV, and its multiples, keV, MeV, GeV, TeV are used in particle physics as their magnitude is more relevant to the scale of subatomic particles.

The eV is used interchangeably as a unit of energy and mass, and often particles are described as having a mass in eV; for example, an electron has a mass of 0.511 MeV and a proton around 930 MeV.

High-energy particle accelerators use TeV.