Abstract: An improvement to the chemical pump as currently used to pump a gas laser cavity is achieved by employing a chemical pump with a fluidized bed, i.e., a bed of particles of a reactive material wherein the particles are suspended in a column by an inert driving fluid. The driving fluid which is nonreactive with the particles of reactive material can be selected from the group consisting of helium and argon. In addition to its function to fluidize the particles of reactive material, the driving fluid can function for some designs to load or unload the particle bed material. The reactive material is selected from the materials consisting of lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, cesium, calcium, strontium, barium, titanium, zirconium, hafnium, and alloys of the same which are reactive with the laser effluent gases which include various mixtures of hydrogen, deuterium, nitrogen, hydrogen fluoride, deuterium fluoride, and other combustion products.

Abstract: An apparatus for pulling a wire through a conduit comprising a base including a planar bottom surface for frictionally engaging a floor and a pair of wedges for anchoring the base to a wall, a pair of upstanding members each being affixed to the base, a shaft oriented with its axis parallel to the bottom surface and journaled proximate each end to the upstanding members, and a pulley secured to an end of the shaft, the pulley having a grooved rim which is formed to receive the wire and having a diameter large enough to prevent the wire from acquiring a set.