Robust excitation and Raman conversion of guided vortices in chiral gas-filled photonic crystal fiber

The unique ring-shaped intensity patterns and helical phase fronts of optical vortices make them useful in many applications. Here we report for the first time efficient Raman frequency conversion between vortex modes in twisted hydrogen-filled single-ring hollow core photonic crystal fiber (SR-PCF). High fidelity transmission of optical vortices in untwisted SR-PCF becomes more and more difficult as the orbital angular momentum (OAM) order increases, due to scattering at structural imperfections in the fiber microstructure. In helically twisted SR-PCF, however, the degeneracy between left- and right-hand