Photonic crystal fibre characterisation with the method of lines

Photonic crystal fibres are longitudinally uniform fibres in which in lateral directions periodic refractive index changes occur. Two basically different light guiding mechanisms occur in crystal fibres: index guiding and bandgap guiding. In the paper different modelling methods have been evaluated when applied to photonic crystal fibres. In particular, the method of lines has been shown to be effective and reliable for both classes of photonic crystal fibres. High accuracy results for optical field distribution and dispersion characteristics in a photonic crystal fibre have been achieved with the method of lines.