Enhanced cutting durability of surgical blade by coating with Fe-based metallic glass thin film

• A surgical blade with high hardness Fe-based MGTF coating was prepared by sputtering method.
• Fe-based MGTF coated blade is much sharper than the commercial blade.
• Fe-based MGTF coated blade presents superior adhesion between the coating and martensitic steel substrate.
• Fe-based MGTF coated blade performs much better cutting durability than the commercial one.

A high hardness Fe-based Metallic Glass Thin Film (MGTF) was successfully coated on the commercial surgical blade by sputtering process. In this study, the commercial martensitic steel blade with and without MGTF were carefully examined for their sharpness. The amorphous state of MGTF was ascertained by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Differential Scanning Carlorimetry (DSC) analysis. The sharpness of each blade on cutting the silicon rubber was evaluated by the value of Blade Sharpness Index (BSI), which represents the ratio of external work done by the load to the energy required to create a cut or crack inside the given materials. Results of sharpness test show that the Fe-based MGTF coated blade presents much smaller BSI values (∼0.28) than the commercial blade (∼0.31), which corresponds to 10.7% improvement on the sharpness. Moreover, the Fe-based MGTF coated blade performs much better cutting durability than the commercial one, it can remain relatively sharper edge-tip with a low BSI value of 0.40 (in comparison with the BSI value of 0.51 for commercial one) after the cutting testing of 30 cm length.

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