Parabolas have been observed in the reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED) patterns from surfaces of single crystals since the early thirties. In the last decade there has been a revival of attempts to elucidate the origin of these surface parabolas. The renewed interest stems from the need to understand the connection between the parabolas and the surface resonance (channeling) condition, the latter being routinely used to obtain higher intensity in reflection electron microscopy (REM) images of surfaces. Several rather diverging descriptions have been proposed to explain the parabolas in the reflection and transmission Kikuchi patterns. Recently we have developed an unifying general treatment in which the parabolas are shown to be K-lines of two-dimensional lattices. Here we want to review the main features of this description and present an experimental diffraction pattern from a 30° MgO (111) surface which displays parabolas that can be attributed to the surface reconstruction.
