This paper presents PCFDT, which is an accurate and friendly photonic crystal fiber design tool based on full-vectorial finite element method. Photonic crystal fibers based on circular and non-circular microstructured holes, and on different propagation mechanisms have been analyzed. Comparisons with other numerical methods and experimental results have shown excellent agreement. The design tool validation includes experimental results of hybrid photonic crystal fibers, proposed by us, which made possible for the first time light be simultaneously confined and manipulated by two propagation mechanism, total internal reflection and photonic bandgap effect. © 2007 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.