Concentric optical vortex beams of 3-petal, 5-petal, and 6-petal spatial profiles are generated at 450 nm using a single diffractive optical element. The spatial and temporal propagation characteristics of these beams are then studied in a scattering underwater environment. Experimental results demonstrate a less than 5% reduction in the spatial pattern for turbidities in excess of 10 attenuation lengths. The temporal properties of concentric vortex beams are studied by temporally encoding an on-off keyed, non-return-to-zero (OOK-NRZ) data stream at 1.5 GHz.

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