Dynamics of localized and nonlocalized optical vortex solitons in cubic-quintic nonlinear media.

The nonlinear dynamics of laser beams carrying phase singularity in media with cubic-quintic nonlinearity changing from self-focusing to self-defocusing is examined. A novel kind of stable nonlocalized optical vortices appears in such media as well as localized vortex solitons. Linear stability analysis and numerical simulations show the stability of localized vortices only in the defocusing region.