The development and characterisation of electrochemically generated hydrogen bubbles for gas evolution kinetics and force spectroscopy are described. Bubbles have been grown at the platinised tip of a commercially available atomic force microscopy (AFM) needle probe (exposed electrode radius r < 300 nm) and monitored by CCD camera. Results show consistent bubble growth in galvanostatic conditions. The utility of the bubbleprobes in AFM force spectroscopy is demonstrated.