Ultra-high vacuum (UHV) is the vacuum regime characterised by pressures lower than about 100 nanopascals (1.0×10−7 Pa; 1.0×10−9 mbar; 7.5×10−10 Torr). UHV conditions are created by pumping the gas out of a UHV chamber. At these low pressures the mean free path of a gas molecule is greater than approximately 40 km, so the gas is in free molecular flow, and gas molecules will collide with the chamber walls many times before colliding with each other. Almost all molecular interactions therefore take place on various surfaces in the chamber.

UHV conditions are integral to scientific research. Surface science experiments often require a chemically clean sample surface with the absence of any unwanted adsorbates. Surface analysis tools such as X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and low energy ion scattering require UHV conditions for the transmission of electron or ion beams. For the same reason, beam pipes in particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider are kept at UHV.

 

Note:   The above text is excerpted from the Wikipedia article Ultra-high vacuum, which has been released under the GNU Free Documentation License.