A membrane electrode assembly for a solid electrolyte fuel cell comprises: an electrode having a layer of nano-structured material on one of its faces, an electrocatalyst deposited on the nano-structured material and an electrolyte deposited on the electrocatalyst/nano-structured material. The nano-structured material can comprise carbon, silicon, graphite, boron, titanium and be in the form of multi-walled nano-tubes (MWNTs), single-walled nano-tubes (SWNTs), nano-fibers, nano-rods or a combination thereof. The nano-structured material can be grown or deposited on one face of an electrode of the cell or on a substrate such as a flexible sheet material of carbon fibers using chemical vapor deposition. The electrocatalyst and electrolyte can be incorporated in the nano structured material using physical vapor deposition (PVD), ion beam sputtering or molecular beam epitaxy (MBE).