  The prevailing notion is that the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of an
optical vortex can only be transferred to the internal degrees of freedom (i.e.
electronic motion) of materials through electric quadrupole and higher-order
multipole interactions. Here it is highlighted how this is an artefact of the
paraxial approximation and that optical OAM can be transferred to electronic
motion via dipole transitions under the correct experimental conditions where
non-paraxial, longitudinal fields must be accounted for.
