The atomic force microscope (AFM) was invented in 1986 as an alternative to the scanning tunnelling microscope, which cannot be used in studies of non-conductive materials. Today the AFM is a powerful, versatile and fundamental tool for visualizing and studying the morphology of material surfaces. Moreover, additional information for some materials can be recovered by analysing the AFM's higher cantilever modes when the cantilever...

The article presents a new method of monitoring and assessing the course of the dry methane reforming process with the use of a gas sensor array. Nine commercially available TGS chemical gas sensors were used to construct the array (seven metal oxide sensors and two electrochemical ones). Principal Component Regression (PCR) was used as a calibration method. The developed PCR models were used to determine the quantitative parameters...

In addition to traditional imaging the surface, atomic force microscopy (AFM) enables wide variety of additional measurements. One of them is higher harmonic imaging. In tapping mode the nonlinear contact between tip and specimen results in higher frequency vibrations. More information available from the higher harmonics analysis proves to be helpful for more detailed imaging. Such visualization is espe-cially useful for heterogeneous...