High quality biaxially textured yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) thin films, as buffer layers of coated conductors, were deposited on hastelloy substrates by ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD) method with different assisting ion energy E(i). The roles of assisting ion beam and the influences of ion energy E(i) on the structure of the films were Studied. It was found that both the out-of-plane alignment and in-plane texture of the IBAD-YSZ films are sensitive to the variation of E(i). The results are explained in the paper by different damage tolerance of the differently oriented grains to ion bombardment. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.