Waveguidance by the photonic bandgap effect in optical fibres

Photonic crystals form a new class of intriguing building blocks to be util ized in future optoelectronics and electromagnetics. One of the most exciti ng possibilities offered by photonic crystals is the realization of new typ es of electromagnetic waveguides. In the optical domain, the most mature te chnology for such photonic bandgap (PBG) waveguides is in optical fibre con figurations. These new fibres can be classified in a fundamentally differen t way to all optical waveguides and possess radically different guiding pro pertied due to PBG guidance, as opposed to guidance by total internal refle ction. In this paper we summarize and review our theoretical work demonstra ting the underlying physical principles of PBG guiding optical fibres and d iscuss some of their unique waveguiding properties.