By extension, a [uvw] zone-axis pattern (ZAP) is a diffraction pattern taken with an incident beam, e.g. of electrons, X-rays or neutrons traveling along a lattice direction specified by the zone-axis indices [uvw]. Because of their small wavelength &lambda;, high energy electrons used in electron microscopes have a very large Ewald sphere radius (1/&lambda;), so that electron diffraction generally "lights up" diffraction spots with g-vectors (hkl) that are perpendicular to [uvw].
One result of this, as illustrated in the figure above, is that "low-index" zones are generally perpendicular to "low-Miller index" lattice planes, which in turn have small spatial frequencies (g-values) and hence large lattice periodicities (d-spacings). A possible intuition behind this is that in electron microscopy, for electron beams to be directed down wide (i.e. easily visible) tunnels between columns of atoms in a crystal, directing the beam down a low-index (and by association high-symmetry) zone axis may help.