Open AccessGeneration of linear and nonlinear propagation of three-Airy beams
Author(s) -
Yi Liang,
Zhuoyi Ye,
Daohong Song,
Cibo Lou,
Xinzheng Zhang,
Jingjun Xu,
Zhigang Chen
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.21.001615
Subject(s) - airy beam , optics , superposition principle , physics , diffraction , nonlinear system , beam (structure) , truncation (statistics) , airy function , mathematics , quantum mechanics , statistics
We report the first experimental demonstration of the so-called three-Airy beams. Such beams represent a two-dimensional field that is a product (rather than simple superposition) of three Airy beams. Our experiments show that, in contrast to conventional Airy beams, this new family of Airy beams can be realized even without the use of truncation by finite apertures. Furthermore, we study linear and nonlinear propagation of the three-Airy beams in a photorefractive medium. It is found that a three-Airy beam tends to linearly diffract into a super-Gaussian-like beam, while under nonlinear propagation it either turns into three intensity spots with a self-defocusing nonlinearity or evolves into a self-trapped channel with a self-focusing nonlinearity.