separate preheat chamber not shown for a duration sufficient to develop an alumina scale the preheat step also serves to bring the surface of the blade 16 to a temperature suitable for performing the coating process while conventional ebpvd processes have typically employed temperatures of about 950 u00b0 c or more the sputtering operation of this invention can be performed at much lower temperatures such as about 50 u00b0 c to about 400 u00b0 c preferably about 100 u00b0 c to about 150 u00b0 c advantages of using lower temperatures include improved columnarity of the tbc grains and the ability to coat components with brazed joints without remelting the braze material and coating blades with shot peened dovetails without negating the desired effects of shot peening the process for depositing tbc in accordance with this invention generally entails suspending the blade 16 in the coating chamber 12 above one or more metal targets 24 and 26 which are subjected to sputtering to generate a vapor of metal atoms that condense on the surfaces of the blade 16 to form a metal coating to carry out the deposition process the coating chamber 12 is evacuated and then backfilled with a mixture of oxygen and an inert gas such as argon to maintain a pressure of about 0 0001 to about 0 01 mbar during the coating operation the addition of oxygen is for the purpose of oxidizing the metal layer to form a metal oxide layer suitable ceramic materials for the tbc include zirconia zro 2 at least partially stabilized yttria y 2 o 3.