Crystal structure of thin oxide films grown on Zr-Nb alloys studied by RHEED

The highly surface sensitive reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) technique was used to determine thecrystal structure of oxide films grown on Zr-Nb alloys in air up to 673 K. The results show that the oxide films grown on Zr-2.5 wt% Nb(α-Zr + β-Zr) have a mixture of nearly-cubic-tetragona and monoclinic structures for films of 200 nm thick or less and that the outer layers of films thicker than 800 nm only have the monoclinic crystal structure. However, oxide films grown on Zr-20 wt% Nb (β-Zr) have a stabilized nearly-cubic-tetragonal structure for all film thicknesses, studied here, up to 2100 nm.