Optical vortex beams are of fundamental interest due to their applications. An optical vortex with a spiral phase carries an orbital angular momentum (OAM) along the propagation axis . There is a phase singularity at the core of the vortex which evolves its doughnut-shaped intensity profile. Optical vortices are routinely created to carry specific values of OAM. When interacting with the matter, their specific characteristics result in various interesting effects, including ultraprecise atom localization, entanglement of OAM states of photon pairs, atom vortex beams, light-induced torque and spatially dependent electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). A transition from a nontrivial (vortex) to a trivial (nonvortex) state of the light is very promising and may provide interesting applications in the topological photonic area. The exchange of optical vortices is a possible tool for the manipulation of information encoded into the OAM of light. It allows generating structured light at a wavelength for which it is not possible to do it directly with standard optics (e.g., far infrared or UV).