Emergent helical texture of electric dipoles

A helix of dipoles In magnetic materials, magnetic dipoles typically line up parallel or antiparallel to each other. However, more complex orderings, such as helical, can also occur. Khalyavin et al. found that in the material BiCu 0.1 Mn 6.9 O 12 , a helical order can be formed out of electric rather than magnetic dipoles. The material also harbors an associated structural helical order, which symmetry analysis suggests might be switchable with an applied electric field. Science , this issue p. 680