Lattice with a twist: Helical waveguides for ultracold matter

We investigate the waveguiding properties of the optical interference pattern of two counter-propagating Laguerre–Gaussian beams. The number, helicity, radius, pitch, depth and frequencies of transverse confinement of the waveguides are simply related to the beam parameters. Quantitative connections to the familiar Gaussian optical lattice are made and an application to quantum transport is suggested.