TY - JOUR A1 - Symietz, Christian A1 - Lehmann, Erhard A1 - Gildenhaar, Renate A1 - Koter, Robert A1 - Berger, Georg A1 - Krüger, Jörg T1 - Fixation of bioactive calcium alkali phosphate on Ti6Al4V implant material with femtosecond laser pulses JF - Applied surface science N2 - Bone implants made of metal, often titanium or the titanium alloy Ti6Al4V, need to be surface treated to become bioactive. This enables the formation of a firm and durable connection of the prosthesis with the living bone. We present a new method to uniformly cover Ti6Al4V with a thin layer of ceramics that imitates bone material. These calcium alkali phosphates, called GB14 and Ca10, are applied to the metal by dip coating of metal plates into an aqueous slurry containing the fine ceramic powder. The dried samples are illuminated with the 790 nm radiation of a pulsed femtosecond laser. If the laser fluence is set to a value just below the ablation threshold of the ceramic (ca. 0.4 J/cm²) the 30 fs laser pulses penetrate the partly transparent ceramic layer of 20–40 µm thickness. The remaining laser fluence at the ceramic–metal interface is still high enough to generate a thin metal melt layer leading to the ceramic fixation on the metal. The laser processing step is only possible because Ti6Al4V has a lower ablation threshold (between 0.1 and 0.15 J/cm²) than the ceramic material. After laser treatment in a fluence range between 0.1 and 0.4 J/cm², only the particles in contact with the metal withstand a post-laser treatment (ultrasonic cleaning). The non-irradiated rest of the layer is washed off. In this work, we present results of a successful ceramic fixation extending over larger areas. This is fundamental for future applications of arbitrarily shaped implants. KW - Bone implant KW - Bioceramic coating KW - Titanium KW - Calcium phosphate KW - Femtosecond laser PY - 2011 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsusc.2010.10.046 SN - 0169-4332 SN - 1873-5584 VL - 257 IS - 12 SP - 5208 EP - 5212 PB - North-Holland CY - Amsterdam AN - OPUS4-23310 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -