Understanding how defects alter physical properties of materials has lead to improvements in materials growth as well as device performance. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) provides an invaluable tool for structural characterization of defects. Our current knowledge of crystallographic defects, such as dislocations, would not have been possible without TEM. Recently, scanning tunneling microscopy and scanning force microscopy (SFM) have shown the capability of imaging surface defects with atomic or near-atomic resolution in topographic images. What is more important is to gain knowledge on how the presence of a certain type of defects changes the physical properties of materials. For example, how is the carrier lifetime altered near electrically active defects? How does photoresponse vary near grain boundaries? Where are defect levels in the forbidden bandgap? This talk will discuss several examples of how scanning probe microscopies (SPMs) can contribute to this aspect of defect studies in semiconductors.