A plasma vacuum pump including an array of permanent magnets, one or more plasma conduits or ducts, components for accelerating plasma ions through these conduits, and supporting structures that together comprise at least one applied plasma duct system (APDS) cell. The APDS cell permits large volumes of particles and plasma to flow rapidly in a preferred direction while constricting the flow of neutral particles in the reverse direction. A plasma pump utilizing APDS technology is intended to permit a large throughput of ionized gas at the intermediate pressures of interest in the plasma-enhanced processing industry, compressing this gas to a pressure at which blower-type pumps can be used efficiently to exhaust the spent processing gas at atmospheric pressure.