History and Status of the CAFM

The conductive atomic force microscope (CAFM) records the currents flowing at the tip/sample nanojunction simultaneously to the topography. The CAFM can be used to monitor the properties of materials, as well as to modify them with atomic resolution. The CAFM became a very popular tool in the field of characterization of thin dielectrics. In particular, the CAFM is especially useful to determine which locations of the samples lead to premature breakdown (BD), which can provide essential information about the reliability of the samples. The use of CAFM for the characterization of thin dielectrics has been recently extended to the field of 2D dielectrics. This chapter presents the use of CAFM for the investigation of piezoelectric nanowires (NWs). New CAFM developments include multiprobe setups and their in situ combination with other techniques, which confirms a very promising panorama for CAFM based techniques.