Introduction Mapping materials physical properties, such as impedance, capacitance, dielectric constants, dopant density, etc., at the nanoscale is of great interest to both materials and semiconductor industries. Such mapping, however, usually is not as straightforward as topography imaging because, in many cases, these properties are related to buried structures not directly shown on the surface. It takes innovative approaches to “see through” and meanwhile achieve suffi cient sensitivity and resolution. With the invention of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), a number of STM and AFM based techniques have been developed to probe materials properties. These include scanning near-fi eld to scanning microwave microscopy (SMM), scanning capacitance microscopy (SCM), scanning spreading resistance microscopy (SSRM), electrostatic force microscopy (EFM), current-sensing (or conductive) AFM (CSAFM), and Kelvin force microscopy (KFM). 1 While each method carries its own pros and cons, SMM and SCM have shown most promising potentials in this fi eld for both industrial applications and scientifi c research.