  Irradiation with an ultrashort laser pulse can completely destroy the
magnetic order of ferromagnetic thin films on the femtosecond timescale. This
phenomenon holds great potential for ultrafast spintronics and information
processing and is an active field of research. It is still an open question if
the angular momentum of light can support this effect. While it has been shown
that the spin of light only has a negligible influence, we experimentally
demonstrate the influence of ultrashort laser pulses with orbital angular
momentum (OAM) on the magnetization dynamics of a thin nickel film. Our results
reveal that the photonic OAM affects the demagnetization behavior within the
first hundreds of femtoseconds depending on the handedness of the OAM with
respect to the direction of the sample magnetization.
