The crystalline quality of bet CrN (001) superlattices is found to be strongly dependent on the thickness ratio of the constituents. The out-of-plane coherence length varies from 275 A to 880 angstrom, corresponding to 30% and close to 100% of the total film thicknesses, which was kept the same for all the samples. The width of the rocking curve (mosaicity) varies as much as from below 0.02 degrees to 0.8 degrees. Using an adaptation of the Matthews-Blakeslee theory for critical thickness, we define a parameter window available for the growth of superior Cr/V (001) superlattices. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.