An in-vessel cryo-condensation pump is being designed for the Advanced Divertor configuration of the DIII-D tokamak. To assess the importance of possible desorption of water vapor from the cryogenic surfaces of the pump due to impingement of energetic particles from the plasma, a 77 K surface on which a thin layer of water vapor was condensed was exposed to a tenuous plasma (density = 2 {times} 10{sup 10} cm{sup {minus}3}, electron temperature = 3 eV). Significant desorption of the condensate occurred, suggesting that impingement of energeticparticles (10 eV) at flux levels of {approximately}10{sup 16} cm{sup 2}s{sup {minus}1} on cryogenic surfaces could potentially induce impurity problems in the tokamak plasma. A pumping configuration is presented in which this problem is minimized without sacrificing the pumping speed
