Creating electron vortex beams with light.

We propose an all-optical method of creating electron vortices utilizing the Kapitza-Dirac effect. This technique uses the transfer of orbital angular momentum from photons to free electrons creating electron vortex beams in the process. The laser intensities needed for this experiment can be obtained with available pulsed lasers and the resulting electron beams carrying orbital angular momentum will be particularly useful in the study of magnetic materials and chiral plasmonic structures in ultrafast electron microscopy.