Magnetic order of LiCu2O2 studied by resonant soft x-ray magnetic scattering

We present results of resonant soft x-ray magnetic scattering measurements on single crystals of LiCu2O2 to address the magnetic order. LiCu2O2 exhibits a long-range magnetic order incommensurate with the lattice, and the modulation vector is (0.5, ζ, 0) in reciprocal lattice units with ζ∼0.174, depending upon the temperature. The spin-spin correlation length along the spin chain deduced from the width of momentum scan is larger than 2100 Å. The inter-chain correlation length that lies within the ab plane was discovered to be substantial, ∼690 Å.