The ICAM'97 symposium on "Recent Developments in Electron Microscopy and X-Ray Diffraction of Thin Film Structures" was presented at the combined 1997 International Conference on Applied Materials/European Materials Research Society Spring meeting (ICAM'97/E-MRS'97) held in Strasbourg (France) from 16-20 June 1997. . More than 60 participants representing 10 countries met to discuss the recent developments related to the study of crystalline structure of thin films: first stages of growth, morphology, strains and their relaxation. The aim of this symposium was to discuss the applications of both electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction in thin film studies.

X-ray diffraction is a non-destructive method giving very accurate information in reciprocal space for the determination of crystalline data. Many of the contributions were concerned with following such growth processes such as epitaxy of metals and semiconducting materials, measuring the average strain and the structure and the morphology of the films.

The electron microscopy investigations allow the study of microstructures and crystalline defects. The main handicap is the necessity for the destruction of the specimens. Electron microscopy is useful for studying the randomly distributed failures in periodicity of crystalline structures.