The scope of this collaboration is to establish the correlation between the microstructure, the local superconducting properties and the resulting macroscopic performance of Tl-based superconducting coatings. This will be achieved by micro- and nanostructural examinations (grain geometry, local texture, grain boundary morphology, compositional gradients) of the material structure and measurements of the superconducting properties by transport, magnetometry, and scanning probe experiments. The thus obtained insights will be an essential feedback for the Tl-based HTS coating development by CNR-SPIN.

Beam impedance mitigation for the FCC-hh requires the development of superconducting coatings to be applied on the inner surface of the magnets’ beam screen. High-temperature superconductors (HTS) are the natural choice given the temperature (40–60 K) and the external magnetic field (16 T) in which they should operate. Traditional HTS materials are unsuitable for this task, since the performance of the BSCCO family is insufficient for the requirements, and the technology used to endow the REBCO family materials with a superior performance does not allow the production of epitaxial coatings inside tubes.

It is thus planned to develop an alternative technology making use of a thallium-based HTS material (Tl-1223 / Tl-1212). This material has been demonstrated in literature to possess all the required properties, and can be deposited epitaxially by scalable technologies such as electrochemical methods or ink-jet technologies.