residual stresses and therefore experience short thermal cycling life cte mismatch stresses can be significantly mitigated by creating a highly strain tolerant columnar microstructure using the eb pvd or dvd processes plasma spraying may be used for layers with a complex chemistry multiple phases react at high temperatures to form glass containing reaction products that create strong chemical bonding for long steam cycling life an illustrative embodiment provides a combination of a plasma sprayed complex oxide based bond coat and either an eb pvd or dvd based rare earth silicate stabilized zirconia or stabilized hafnia top coat this combination provides the ebcs with a high temperature bond coat with a temperature capability exceeding the temperature capability of current silicon si bond coats u2212 2460 f along with a highly strain tolerant and water vapor resistant low thermal conductivity top coat the high temperature bond coat enables the implementation of high temperature cmcs 2700 f cmc in gas turbines while the highly strain tolerant and water vapor resistant low thermal conductivity top coat increases the ebc surface temperature capability to about u2212 3000 f examples of plasma sprayed layers include oxide based high temperature bond coats with complex chemistry such as mullite 3al 2 o 3 2sio 2 mullite si hfsio 4 sio 2 si hfsio 4 al 2 o 3 sio 2 si re 2 si 2 o 7 al 2 o 3 si re 2 si 2 o 7 al 2 o 3 sio2 si hfsio 4 al 2 o 3 si hfsio 4 si and sio 2 al 2 o 3 si where re is selected from the group consisting of at least one of lutetium ytterbium thulium erbium holmium dysprosium terbium.