The phrase "a fundamental unit" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used in contexts related to science, mathematics, or philosophy to refer to a basic or essential component of a system or concept.
Example: "In physics, the atom is often considered a fundamental unit of matter."
Alternatives: "a basic component" or "an essential element".
In contrast, a periodic sequence such as LSLLSLLSLLSLLSL... has a fundamental unit (LSL) that is precisely repeated at equal intervals.
More significantly, Faraday's work was the first to imply the electrical nature of matter and the existence of subatomic particles and a fundamental unit of charge.
By that time, Planck had combined the new number he had derived, a fundamental unit of physical activity now known as Planck's constant, with the speed of light and Newton's constant for the force of gravity.
But according to quantum mechanics, the orientation angle of a single particle can assume only certain discrete values because the angular momentum of the particle must be an integral multiple of a fundamental unit of angular momentum.
In 1887, German chemist Otto Wallach recognized that a fundamental unit of five carbon atoms could be connected in different ways to produce the variety of carbon atom arrangements found in monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes (molecules containing 15 carbon atoms).
Gleick's engrossing history of information theory illustrates our dawning understanding of the fact that we are "creatures of information" who live in a universe that is also information: a "bit" – a fundamental unit of information – can be a magnetised fleck on a hard disk or a gene or a quantum particle.
In 1901, however, following the discoveries by James Clerk Maxwell to the effect that electric measurements could not be explained in terms of the three fundamental units of length, mass and time, Giovanni Giorgi proposed a new standard system which would include a fourth fundamental unit to measure quantities in electromagnetism.
The unit stock is still an idealized fundamental unit which, when correctly identified, allows estimation of important population parameters without the biases that result from incorporation of unknown components of additional unit stocks.
The sector assembled in the assembly building is a basic and fundamental unit for the construction of the ITER Tokamak.
In eukaryotes, an octamer of histones H2A, H2B, H3 and H4 is wrapped by 147 bp of DNA to form a nucleosome – the fundamental unit of chromatin (Luger et al, 1997).
The most prevalent contemporary definition is that a gene is the fundamental unit that codes for a polypeptide.
