Production and application of electron vortex beamsp301
It was demonstrated recently that passing electrons through a spiral stack of graphite thin films generates an electron beam with orbital angular momentum — analogous to the spiralling wavefronts that can be introduced in photon beams and which have found widespread application. Here, a versatile holographic technique for generating these twisted electron beams is described. Moreover, a demonstration is provided of their potential use in probing a material's magnetic properties.