Nonlinear evolution of Airy-like beams generated by modulated waveguide arrays

We numerically study the formation of modulated waveguide generated Airy-like beams and their subsequent evolution in homogeneous medium. The results show that the Airy-like beams could be generated from narrow Gaussian beams propagating in one-dimensional transverse separation modulated unbent, cosine bent, or logarithm bent waveguide arrays, respectively. The waveguide-generated Airy-like beams maintain their characteristics when propagating without nonlinearity or under the self-defocusing nonlinearity in homogeneous medium, while the beams are distorted under the self-focusing nonlinearity. The deformation depends on the waveguide bending and the outgoing angles of the Airy-like beams. Our results provide a new way to generate and manipulate the Airy-like beam. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America