Dissipative vortex solitons in two-dimensional lattices

We report the existence of stable symmetric vortex-type solutions for two-dimensional nonlinear discrete dissipative systems governed by a cubic-quintic complex Ginzburg-Landau equation. We construct a whole family of vortex solitons with a topological charge S = 1. Surprisingly, the dynamical evolution of unstable solutions of this family does not significantly alter their profile, but instead their phase distribution completely changes; they transform into two-charge swirl-vortex solitons. We dynamically excite this structure showing its experimental feasibility.