Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2011
The use of ion-beam techniques to enhance selected properties of bioactive materials, such as the adhesion of hydroxylapatite (HA) coatings on titanium-based substrates has been investigated. In this study, very thin HA films on titanium substrates were created by pulsed laser deposition techniques. Ion irradiations were carried out using 260-keV argon ions, with fluences of 0.25-50×1015ions/cm2, and at room temperature. Rutherford backscattering spectrometry was used to evaluate sample composition before and after irradiation. The amount of mixing was quantified by the mixing rate (the amount of atomic displacement due to an irradiation fiuence). This pilot data indicates that mixing was evident after sufficient ion irradiation. The ramification of this preliminary study has provided a quantitative measure of ion mixing as a potential prosthetic biomaterial surface modification technique.