Nonlinear propagation and quasi self-confinement of light in plasmonic resonant media

We study nonlinear propagation of light in colloidal suspension of metallic nanoparticies, in the regime of particles surface plasmon resonance. We show that the propagation exhibits features typical for purely defocusing media and the observed spatial confinement is not a real self-trapping, as for solitons, but rather than is caused by the phase modulation of the beam via nonlocal defocusing nonlinearity. We also show that the light-induced refractive index change in the suspension leads to stabilization of structured light beams. In particular, we demonstrate a stable nonlinear propagation of bright ring beams with complex states of polarization, including practically important radial and azimuthal states. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement