Fe-doped hydroxyapatite coatings for orthopedic and dental implant applications

In the present study, the pulsed laser deposition technique was applied to coat titanium for orthopedic and dental implant applications. Iron-substituted hydroxyapatite (Fe-HAp) (0.28 wt.% of Fe) was used as coating material since titanium itself is unable to elicit biologically functional bone/material interface. The obtained Fe-HAp crystalline films are nanostructured (35 nm mean crystallite size) and possess the following characteristics: dense and compact microstructure, irregular surface with average roughness of about 0.3 ?m, thickness of 1.5 ?m and intrinsic Vickers microhardness of 17 GPa.