Deposition and investigation of functionally graded calcium phosphate coatings on titanium

A series of calcium phosphate coatings with graded crystallinity were deposited onto heated titanium substrates using ion beam assisted deposition. The microstructure of the coating was examined using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The coating thickness was observed to be in a range of 594–694 nm. The degree of crystallinity and microstructural grain size of the coating showed a clear decrease with increasing distance from the substrate–coating interface. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) confirmed the presence of PO43-, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis on the coating top surface showed that the atomic Ca/P ratio was in the range of 1.52 ± 0.15 to 1.61 ± 0.07. The biological response to the coatings was also evaluated using an osteoblast precursor cell culture test. More cells and a higher integrin expression of cell attachment sites were observed on the coating surface when compared to the control group (blank titanium surface). The pull-off test showed average adhesion strengths at the coating–substrate interface to be higher than 85.12 ± 5.37 MPa. Nanoindentation tests indicated that the Young’s moduli of all coatings are higher than 91.747 ± 3.641 GPa and microhardness values are higher than 5.275 ± 0.315 GPa. While the adhesion strength results helped us to identify the best setup for substrate temperature and processing parameters to begin the deposition, the culture test and XPS results helped identifying the optimum parameters for the last stage of deposition. TEM, X-ray diffraction, FTIR and nanoidentation results were used to further evaluate the quality of the coating and optimization of its processing parameters.