On the basis of critical comparison of experimental and theoretical values of the E parameter and investigation of the retardation effect of oxygen on the evaporation rate of ZnO, CdO and HgO, it was concluded that the dissociative evaporation of ZnO and HgO proceeds with releasing of atomic oxygen (O) as a primary product of decomposition. By contrast, the mechanism of dissociative evaporation of CdO corresponds to the equilibrium reaction with releasing of molecular oxygen (O-2) as a primary product of decomposition. As was shown, this difference in mechanisms is not related with interatomic O-O distances in these oxides. From the analysis of crystal structure for 12 different oxides, which evaporate with releasing of atomic oxygen, and for 13 compounds, which evaporate with releasing of molecular oxygen, it was revealed that the first mechanism is observed for all oxides with the cubic crystal structure. It was proposed that a decisive role in this difference belongs to a local symmetry in the position of O atoms. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.