Patent ID: 8745849

Claim:
A method of making a superconducting coil in situ on a template on a former, the template being made from a sheet of flexible biaxially-textured material having at least two joining edges, the surface texture of the sheet being defined by a plurality of grains, the former having a substantially curved surface, the method comprising forming the template on the former and then forming the superconducting coil in situ on the template, the method of forming the template comprising: shaping the sheet so that: a) each joining edge lies adjacent to another joining edge on application of the sheet to the former, each joining edge and its adjacent edge being a pair of edges; and b) the sheet is dimensioned to cover a part of the surface of the former and substantially to fit that part of the former; positioning the sheet on the former so that regions of the sheet either side of the pair of edges have substantially aligned grains; and forming a join between the pair of edges, the template thereby having a substantially continuous textured surface across the join; and the method of forming the superconducting coil on the template comprising forming a series of thin film coils on the template by forming alternate superconducting layers and non-superconducting buffer layers.