A theoretical study of photonic liquid crystal fibers (PLCFs) is presented. Applied numerical approach is based on fully-vectorial plane wave method for the calculation of modal structure of photonic crystal fiber. Used method allows for including material anisotropy that is essential in numerical simulations of the light propagation in photonic liquid crystal fibers. Influence of such parameters as molecules ordering and orientation on the photonic band gaps location and on the propagation constant values of guided modes are studied. It is shown that the guiding mechanism can be easily switched between index guiding and bandgap guiding simply by changing temperature. Moreover, the hybrid guiding for different polarizations can be achieved by applying external electric field perpendicular to the propagation direction.
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