In this work the electrolyte manufacturing of metal supported solid oxide fuel cells (MSC) by a gas flow sputtering (GFS) process is discussed. This GFS process was developed at Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films (Fraunhofer IST) in Braunschweig, Germany. Based on a porous metal substrate (tradename: ITM, Plansee, Austria) a screen printed anode was developed in cooperation with Plansee and Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany. On this anode a thin and gas-tight electrolyte is brought up by this physical vapour deposition (PVD) GFS process. The electrolyte was widely developed on a research facility in cooperation with Fraunhofer IST whereby a permanent matching with anode development in Jülich was realized. On the one hand, a first milestone was to find an anode with a structure to enable a gas-tight thin film electrolyte and on the other hand the anode should handle high residual compressive stresses of that electrolyte. A further component in this work lied in treatment of occurred electrolyte coating errors which will increase the leakage rate of that layer. Hereby different methods were evaluated which were able to locate coating errors and make them visible. On the research facility at Fraunhofer IST coating parameters were worked out and have been transferred to a manufacturing facility, whereas with this step a first industrialization was realized. Hereby it was necessary to ensure a consistent coating thickness and homogeneity of the electrolyte over the whole coating area. Different MSCs which were manufactured by an electrolyte depicted within this work were characterized electrochemically. Hereby single cell tests in planar design were performed at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), whereas stack tests of MSCs in cassette design were made in Jülich
