A decrease in the operating temperature of solid oxide fuel cells below 700 degrees C results in a significant decrease of the output power. In this temperature regime the ionic resistance of the commonly used electrolyte yttria-stabilized zirconia becomes dominant. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the thickness of the electrolyte layer to minimize the resistance to ionic flow as long as no alternative electrolyte materials with higher ionic conductivity negligible electronic conductivity and sufficient stability are available. In this paper electron beam physical vapour deposition is discussed as a deposition technology for thin electrolyte layers. An electrolyte composite layer was developed with a lower specific resistance in comparison to an electrolyte layer made by vacuum slip-casting. The purpose of the composite electrolyte was to fulfil both gas tightness and electronic insulation. The performance of fully-assembled anode-supported fuel cells with an electrolyte composite manufactured by electron beam evaporation was 0.93 A/cm(2) at 650 degrees C and 0.7 V. whereas the performance of cells with an electrolyte manufactured by vacuum slip-casting with a sintering step was 0.63 A/cm(2) at 650 degrees C and 0.7 V. The performance improvement was interpreted in terms of a significantly different bulk ionic resistance of the electrolyte layers. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.