RHEED is an extremely popular technique for monitoring the growth of thin films. In particular, RHEED is well suited for use with molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), a process used to form high quality, ultrapure thin films under ultrahigh vacuum growth conditions. The intensities of individual spots on the RHEED pattern fluctuate in a periodic manner as a result of the relative surface coverage of the growing thin film. Figure 8 shows an example of the intensity fluctuating at a single RHEED point during MBE growth.