A new way of producing electron vortex probes for STEM

► Spiral apertures form an alternative to fork apertures for producing electron vortex beams. ► Their advantage is that the three beams with different topological charge appear in different planes of focus. ► We show experimental evidence of vortex beams made with spiral apertures. ► We use them in a STEM setup to obtain the first atomic resolution HAADF STEM images with electron vortex probes. ► Such beams open the door for further atomic resolution magnetic information when combined with EELS.