Spontaneous and sequential transitions of a Gaussian beam into diffraction rings, single ring and circular array of filaments in a photopolymer.

A Gaussian beam propagating in a photopolymer undergoes self-phase modulation to form diffraction rings and then transforms into a single ring, which in turn ruptures into a necklace of stable self-trapped multimode filaments. The transitions of the beam between the three distinct nonlinear forms only occur at intensities where the beam-induced refractive index profile in the medium slowly evolves from a Gaussian to a flattened Gaussian.