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Atomic mercury vapor inside a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

We demonstrate high atomic mercury vapor pressure in a kagomé-style hollow-core photonic crystal fiber at room temperature. After a few days of exposure to mercury vapor the fiber is homogeneously filled and the optical depth achieved remains constant. With incoherent optical pumping from the ground state we achieve an optical depth of 114 at the $6^3P_2 - 6^3D_3$ transition, corresponding to an atomic mercury number density of $6 \times 10^{10}$ cm$^{-3}$. The use of mercury vapor in quasi one-dimensional confinement may be advantageous compared to chemically more active alkali vapor, while offering strong optical nonlinearities in the ultraviolet region of the optical spectrum.