Candidate stainless steels for GEN IV reactors were investigated in term of thermal and corrosion stability at high temperatures. New austenitic steel (NF 709), austenitic ODS steel (ODS 316) and two ferritic ODS steels (MA 956 and MA 957) were exposed to around 1000 degrees C in inert argon atmosphere at pressure of similar to 8 MPa. The steels were further studied in a light of vacancy defects presence by positron annihilation spectroscopy and their thermal resistance was confronted to classic AISI steels. The thermal strain supported a creation of oxide layers observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.