The upper critical field and its anisotropy in LiFeAs

The upper critical field $mu_0H_{c2}(T_c)$ of LiFeAs single crystals has been determined by measuring the electrical resistivity using the facilities of pulsed magnetic field at Los Alamos. We found that $mu_0H_{c2}(T_c)$ of LiFeAs shows a moderate anisotropy among the layered iron-based superconductors; its anisotropic parameter $gamma$ monotonically decreases with decreasing temperature and approaches $gammasimeq 1.5$ as $Trightarrow 0$. The upper critical field reaches 15T ($Hparallel c$) and 24.2T ($Hparallel ab$) at $T=$1.4K, which value is much smaller than other iron-based high $T_c$ superconductors. The temperature dependence of $mu_0H_{c2}(T_c)$ can be described by the Werthamer-Helfand-Hohenberg (WHH) method, showing orbitally and (likely) spin-paramagnetically limited upper critical field for $Hparallel c$ and $Hparallel ab$, respectively.