In article . com,
bschwand wrote:
well the idea is to fill the thing with hydrogen, argon, co2, etc. then
pump some out. No air, just the gas under test.

There are tons of vacuum pumps on ebay. I bought a nice welch pump
for 130 dollars. This pump will pull .02 Torr on a tight system
and will pump .5 torr with very crude plumbing (like automotive
PS rubber hose). Way more than you say you need (.1 atm which is 76 torr).

It can pump down a small 1 gal bell jar in 10 seconds.
BTW, I bought a bell jar from fisher scientific. It works but the
glass is very poor. The price was right though at ~50 bucks.

However it sounds like you might learn a lot by looking at Sam's
laser page. Google for it. There is a ton of info there that
might be right up your alley.

chuck