Abstract: This paper investigates the zero dispersion wavelength and dispersion slope control of hollow-core photonic bandgap fibres (PBGFs) by using a full-vector finite element method. By simulation we found that theoretically the zero dispersion wavelength can be tailored by respectively changing the rounded diameter of air holes, pitch, refractive index, normalized thickness of core rings, and hole diameter to pitch ratio. At the same time the tailoring of dispersion slope can also be realized by changing the rounded diameter of air holes or pitch or normalized thickness of core rings. To illustrate the reasonability of fibre designs, this paper also gives the variance of normalized interface field intensity which measures the scattering loss relatively versus wavelength for different designs. From the viewpoint of loss, varying the rounded diameter and the thickness of core ring could shift zero wavelength but it is difficult to get the required parameters within so tiny range in practical drawing of PBGFs, on the other hand, it is possible in practice to respectively alter the pitch and refractive index to shift zero wavelength. But varying hole diameter to pitch ratio is not worthwhile because they each induce large increase of loss and narrowness of transmission bandwidth. The zero dispersion wavelength can be engineered by respectively varying the rounded diameter of air holes, pitch, refractive index, and normalized thickness of core rings without incurring large loss penalties.

Key words: hollow-core photonic bandgap fibre, dispersion, full-vector finite element method, photonic crystal fibre