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The layered honeycomb magnet $\alpha$-Li$_2$IrO$_3$ has been theoreticallyproposed as a candidate to display novel magnetic behaviour associated withKitaev interactions between spin-orbit entangled $j_{\rm eff}=1/2$ magneticmoments on a honeycomb lattice. Here we report single crystal magnetic resonantx-ray diffraction combined with powder magnetic neutron diffraction to revealan incommensurate magnetic order in the honeycomb layers with Ir magneticmoments counter-rotating on nearest-neighbour sites. This type of magneticstructure has not been reported experimentally before in honeycomb magnets andcannot be explained by a spin Hamiltonian with dominant isotropic (Heisenberg)couplings. The magnetic structure shares many key features with the magneticorder in the structural polytypes $\beta$ and $\gamma$-Li$_2$IrO$_3$,understood theoretically to be stabilized by dominant Kitaev interactionsbetween Ir moments located on the vertices of three-dimensional hyperhoneycomband stripyhoneycomb lattices, respectively. Based on this analogy and atheoretical soft-spin analysis of magnetic ground states for candidate spinHamiltonians, we propose that Kitaev interactions also dominate in$\alpha$-Li$_2$IrO$_3$, indicative of universal Kitaev physics across all threemembers of the harmonic honeycomb family of Li$_2$IrO$_3$ polytypes.

Incommensurate Counterrotating Magnetic Order Stabilized by Kitaev Interactions in the Layered Honeycomb ${\alpha}$-Li$_2$IrO$_3$