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Since 1998 exists at ESRF a dedicated beamline for photodesorption measurement from vacuum chambers - D31. The original goal of this installation was to study the wall pumping effect. When exposed to synchrotron radiation surfaces exhibit strong outgassing of the adsorbed gas layer despite UHV conditions. Long term outgassing leads to the depletion of the adsorbed layer and produces a very clean surface which turns the walls of the vacuum chamber into an active pumping surface. The desorption mechanisms can be described by the long standing models of Knotek-Feibelman (KF) and Menzel-Gomer-Redhead – (MGR) which are themselves encompassed under the name of Desorption Induced by Electronic Transitions (DIET). In these models the surface itself plays a fundamental role in the desorption mechanism. At D31 have been tested chambers of stainless steel, aluminum and copper, with or without coatings (e.g. NEG, copper), designed by ESRF and other institutes like ALBA, CERN, ELETTRA and Soleil. Here we review some of the results obtained and outline the future plans of D31.
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