My sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Ang Diing Shenp from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), for his sound technical guidance, inspiring ideas, constructive discussions and constant encouragement throughout the course of my Ph.D research works. His immense knowledge in device physics, sharp analytical skills, effective writing skills, high research integrity and great passion in research have sparked my growing enthusiasm in research field. He is a kind and committed person, who is willing to spend time and patiently works things out with us whenever we faced difficulties in our works. Prof. D. S. Ang is more than a research supervisor to me; he has always provided me with invaluable advices, be it in research, career or life. I am very grateful and lucky to have the opportunity to work under Prof. D. S. Ang's supervision. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Pey Kin Leong (during his tenure with NTU) for granting me access to the ultra-high vacuum scanning tunneling microscopy (UHV-STM) system and Dr. Ong Yi Ching (currently with TSMC Taiwan) for patiently training me in handling the UHV-STM system. She has been very kind to share her technical experience in the high-κ metal oxide characterization using STM. My appreciation to Dr. Lakshmi Kanta Bera for his technical advices on device fabrication process. This project is supported in part by the Singapore Ministry of Education under a research grant MOE2009-T2-1-050 and in part by the NTU.