This work was produced as part of a multidisciplinary study of the corrosion of zirconium
alloys undertaken by a consortium of universities working in the MUZIC program; Oxford,
Manchester and The Open University. The objective of the project as a whole was to further
the understanding of the mechanisms of the breakaway oxidation process and to characterise
these corrosion processes within a number of fuel rod cladding materials. This thesis
describes laser 3D atom probe characterisation of the nano-scale chemical redistribution of
oxygen and other solutes that occurs at the metal-oxide interface during corrosion, and a large
body of technique development that was required to achieve this goal.