This volume contains invited and contributed papers from the 16th international conference on 'Microscopy of Semiconducting Materials' held at the University of Oxford on 17?20 March 2009. The meeting was organised under the auspices of the Royal Microscopical Society with support by the Electron Microscopy and Analysis Group of the Institute of Physics and the Materials Research Society. This conference series focuses on the most recent advances in semiconductor studies carried out by all forms of microscopy, with an emphasis on electron microscopy and related techniques with high spatial resolution. It was attended by 139 delegates from 18 countries world-wide. As semiconductor devices shrink further both new routes of device processing and device characterisation need to be developed, and for the latter methods that offer subnanometre spatial resolution are particularly valuable. Electron microscopy in its various forms of imaging, diffraction and spectroscopy provides indispensable information on both microstructure and chemistry. Recent advances in instrumentation, from lens aberration correction in both TEM and STEM instruments, to the development of a wide range of scanning probe techniques, as well as new methods of quantification of the various signals recorded have been presented at this conference. Two examples of topics that have attracted a number of interesting studies at this meeting are the contrast interpretation in secondary electron images of cleaved semiconductor surfaces and the measurement of chemical composition on the nano-scale of quantum domain structures and devices investigated in cross-section. Each manuscript submitted for publication in this proceedings volume has been reviewed by at least two referees and was modified accordingly. Finally, 70 manuscripts were accepted for publication. The editors are very grateful to the following colleagues for their rapid and careful reviewing of the papers: M al Jassim, J Barnard, R Beanland, H Bender, E Carlino, D Cherns, D Cooper, A J Craven, R E Dunin-Borkowski, D Gerthsen, V Grillo, E Gr?nbaum, M Hecker, K Honda, R Hull, CJ Humphreys, M Jepson, H Kirmse, S Molina, A Norman, R Oliver, B Pecz, P Pongratz, F M Ross , K Tillmann, S Tsukamoto and E Verleysen. We would also like to thank the staff of the Royal Microscopical Society for expert assistance in planning and organising this conference and in particular Victoria Lee for her great help during the event. December 2009 T Walther P D Nellist J L Hutchison A G Cullis