Antiresonant reflection and inhibited coupling in hollow-core square lattice optical fibres.

We propose a guidance mechanism in hollow-core optical fibres dominated by antiresonant reflection from struts of solid material in the cladding. Resonances with these struts determine the high loss bands of the fibres, and vector effects become important in determining the width of these bands through the non-degeneracy of the TE and TM polarised strut modes near cut-off. Away from resonances the light is confined through the inhibited coupling mechanism. This is demonstrated in a square lattice hollow-core microstructured polymer optical fibre.