Nonperturbative Twist in the Generation of Extreme-Ultraviolet Vortex Beams

High-order harmonic generation (HHG) has been recently proven to produce extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) vortices from the nonlinear conversion of infrared twisted beams. Previous works have demonstrated a linear scaling law of the vortex charge with the harmonic order. We demonstrate that this simple law hides an unexpectedly rich scenario for the buildup of orbital angular momentum (OAM) due to the nonperturbative behavior of HHG. The complexity of these twisted XUV beams appears only when HHG is driven by nonpure vortex modes, where the XUV OAM content is dramatically increased. We explore the underlying mechanisms for this diversity and derive a general conservation rule for the nonperturbative OAM buildup. The simple scaling found in previous works corresponds to the collapse of this scenario for the particular case of pure (single-mode) OAM driving fields.C.H.-G. acknowledges support by a Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship within the EU Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (2007–2013), under REA Grant Agreement No. 328334. We acknowledge support from Junta de Castilla y León (Projects No. SA116U13 and No. SA046U16) and Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (FIS2013-44174- P, FIS2016-75652-P). A. P. acknowledges support from the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division under Contract No. DE-AC02- 06CH11357