We investigate the nonlinear propagation of light beams with complex phase and intensity structures, including a Gaussian-embedded vortex, a Bessel vortex, and a Bessel-cosine necklace. We employ a colloidal suspension of bio-synthesized plasmonic gold nanoparticles, where a self-defocusing response is mediated by absorption at the laser wavelength (532 nm). We show that, by means of nonlocal nonlinearity, these structured two-dimensional beams with on-axis singularity can counteract the diffraction of the dark core and guide therein a coaxial Gaussian probe of different wavelengths (633 nm) and lower intensities. Angular steering of the confined probe is also demonstrated by tilting the propagation direction of the pump.

We carry out an experimental campaign to investigate the nonlinear self-defocusing propagation of singular light beams with various complex structures of phase and intensity in a colloidal suspension of gold nanoparticles with a plasmonic resonance near the laser wavelength (532nm). Studying optical vortices embedded in Gaussian beams, Bessel vortices and Bessel-cosine (necklace) beams, we gather evidence that while intense vortices turn into two-dimensional dark solitons, all structured wavepackets are able to guide a weak Gaussian probe of different wavelength (632.8 nm) along the dark core. The probe confinement also depends on the topological charge of the singular pump.

We investigate the nonlinear propagation of singular light beams with complex structures of phase and intensity in a colloidal suspension of gold nanoparticles. All the structured beams can act as waveguides of a probe beam.