Influence of orbital pair breaking on paramagnetically limited states in clean superconductors

Paramagnetic pair breaking is believed to be of increasing importance in many layered superconducting materials such as cuprates and organic compounds. Recently, strong evidence for a phase transition to the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) state has been obtained. We present a theory of competing spin- and orbital pair breaking in clean superconducting films or layers. As a general result, we find that the influence of orbital pair breaking on the paramagnetically limited phase boundary is rather strong, and its neglect seldom justified. This is particularly true for the FFLO state which can be destroyed by a very small orbital contribution. We discuss the situation in ${\mathrm{YBa}}_2{\mathrm{Cu}}_3{\mathrm{O}}_7$ which has two coupled conducting Cu-O layers per unit cell. As a consequence, an intrinsic orbital pair-breaking component might exist even for applied field exactly parallel to the layers.