TiO2 and TiNxOy thin films grown by low pressure metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (LP-MOCVD) on top of Si(001) substrate were characterized by X-ray multiple diffraction. X-ray reflectivity analysis of TiO2[1 1 0] and TiNO[ 1 0 0] polycrystalline layers allowed to determine the growth rate (-80 angstrom/min) of TiO2 and (-40 angstrom/min) of TiNO films. X-ray multiple diffraction through the Renninger scans, i.e., phi-scans for (0 0 2)Si substrate primary reflection is used as a non-conventional method to obtain the substrate lattice parameter distortion due to the thin film conventional deposition, from where the information on film strain type is obtained. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.