Excitation of the TE$_{01}$ hollow metal waveguide mode for atom guiding

We demonstrate excitation of the azimuthally-polarized TE$_{01}$ cylindrical waveguide mode in hollow glass and metal waveguides with 780 nm light. We describe stable and efficient techniques for mode conversion of an incident Gaussian beam to a vectorial vortex beam, and measure attenuation lengths of the TE$_{01}$ mode in hollow optical fibers with diameters of 50-100 $\mu$m. By silver-coating the inner walls of the dielectric fibers, we demonstrate a $\sim$200\% increase in the attenuation length. We discuss progress in implementing these fibers into a cold atom system.