Thin Al2O3-ZrO2 eutectic coating was produced by combustion-assisted thermal explosion spraying using a mixture of Al and Zr(NO3)(4) powders. The cross-sectional microstructure of the coating shows successively amorphous, cellular, and dendrite structure along the direction perpendicular to the Cu substrate. The formation mechanism of the coating structure was analyzed based on the experimental results, and the morphology of different crystal structure was observed by SEM and TEM. Crown Copyright (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.