Tetragonal Zr02 has been used as a toughening phase in a large number of ceramic materials. In this system, complex diffraction phenomena have been observed and an understanding of the origin of the diffraction effects provides important information on the nature of transformation toughening, ionic conduction, and phase destabilization. This paper describes the results of an electron diffraction study of Y203-stabilized, tetragonal Zr02 polycrystals (Y-TZP).Thin foils from the bulk Y-TZP sample were prepared by careful grinding and cryo ion-milling. They were carbon coated and examined in a Philips 400T/FEG microscope. Fig. 1 shows a typical bright field image of the 100% tetragonal(t) Zr02. The tetragonal structure was identified by both bulk x-ray diffraction and convergent beam electron diffraction (Fig. 2. A local region within a t-Zr02 grain was subjected to an intense electron beam irradiation which caused partial martensitic transformation of the t-Zr02 to monoclinic(m) symmetry, Fig. 3 A.