Understanding failure modes, failure mechanisms, and root causes is crucial in the manufacturing of semiconductors and electronic devices. Determining the primary cause leading to a failure helps prevent it in the future, and therefore, improves product quality, reduces costs, and improves customer satisfaction. In the semiconductor manufacturing industry, failure analysis is related to the inspection and characterization of local defects on bare wafers, quality assessment of multi-stage processes, or function and performance analyses of finished devices. With the ever-progressing miniaturization of key functional parts of electronic devices, failure analysis is likewise becoming increasingly challenging 

With the evolution of nanotechnology, the need to understand nano-scale and sub nano-scale surface properties is becoming increasingly important. Particularly, surface properties such as topography and roughness play an important role in the overall performance of a material. For example, in integrated circuits manufacturing, chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) has been used to control the surface roughness of wafers and other substrates, which directly determines the reliability of final products [1,2]. In semiconductor devices packaging, wafer to wafer bonding quality is determined by the roughness of bonding surfaces. It was found that surfaces with high roughness values introduce voids in the bonded interface, and bonding failure occurs when the roughness exceeds a critical threshold [3]. In the field of scientific research, surface topography can be correlated with other material properties to better understand material behaviors for practical applications [4–6].

The implementation of graphene in devices for nanoelectronics or energy conversion often requires material modifications e.g., via covalent binding or adsorption. However, the local surface inhomogeneities of pristine graphene such as wrinkles can affect the uniformity of these modifications. Therefore, accurate nanoscale characterization of the graphene topography in combination with the material’s functional properties is essential. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) unites real-space topography imaging with the detection of functional surface properties, including the electronic potential, adhesion, and modulus, and thus offers a holistic approach to the nanoscale characterization of graphene and other 2D materials.

Electrical conductivity measurement is an effective approach to describe how a material behaves for certain applications, ranging from energy storage and energy conversion devices, to interconnections in molecular electronics and nanometer-sized semi-conductor devices. A technique known as Conductive Probe Atomic Force Microscopy (C-AFM) is a powerful technique that provides accurate nanoscale measurement and mapping of relative difference in electrical conductivity of advanced materials such as CNTs film. Several characterization techniques were introduced in the past decade to study these materials, however, majority of these can only measure a limited electrical properties range. In this study, Park NX20 equipped with C-AFM was used to investigate 3 different materials with wide range of electrical conductivity. The data acquired in this experiment clearly demonstrate the ability of this technique in measuring wide range of electrical conductivity and differentiating surfaces of materials covered with various types of conductive materials, with the use of a logarithmic current amplifier integrated in the system.