Electric and antiferromagnetic chiral textures at multiferroic domain walls

Chirality, a foundational concept throughout science, may arise at ferromagnetic domain walls¹ and in related objects such as skyrmions². However, chiral textures should also exist in other types of ferroic materials, such as antiferromagnets, for which theory predicts that they should move faster for lower power³, and ferroelectrics, where they should be extremely small and possess unusual topologies^4,5. Here, we report the concomitant observation of antiferromagnetic and electric chiral textures at domain walls in the room-temperature ferroelectric antiferromagnet BiFeO₃. Combining reciprocal and real-space characterization techniques, we reveal the presence of periodic chiral antiferromagnetic objects along the domain walls as well as a priori energetically unfavourable chiral ferroelectric domain walls. We discuss the mechanisms underlying their formation and their relevance for electrically controlled topological oxide electronics and spintronics.