Laser ablation and deposition of Bioglass 1 45S5 thin ®lms L. D'Alessio a , D. Ferro b , V. Marotta c , A. Santagata a , R. Teghil a,* , M. Zaccagnino a a Dipartimento di Chimica, Universita Á della Basilicata, via N. Sauro 85, 85100 Potenza, Italy b CNR Centro di Termodinamica Chimica alle Alte Temperature, P.le A. Moro 5, 00185 Roma, Italy c CNR Istituto Materiali Speciali, via S. Loja, Tito Scalo PZ), Italy Received 22 May 2001; accepted 31 July 2001 Abstract A study of the laser ablation and deposition, on Ti6Al4V substrates, of a biological active glass Bioglass 1 45S5) is reported. The gaseous phase composition has been determined by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, optical imaging and emission spectroscopy. The deposited ®lms were studied by scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy and wavelength dispersive X-ray analysis and X-ray diffraction. The adhesion of ®lms to the substrates has been studied by scratch tests. Moreover, after exposing the coatings to a simulating body ¯uid solution, their bioactivity has been monitored by X-ray diffraction analysis of the hydroxylapatite growth. This procedure has been followed for different time scales up to a maximum of 24 days. The deposition mechanism seems to be related mainly to the mechanical transport of the target material in form of droplets, while the gaseous phase, having a very different composition, plays a marginal role. The overall ®lm retains the target stoichiometry and bioactivity in a large range of experimental conditions. # 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PACS: 81.15Fg; 81.05 Kf Keywords: Laser ablation; Thin ®lm deposition; Biomaterials 1. Introduction The materials commonly used in medicine can be divided as a consequence of their behaviour in the biologicalenvironment,inbioinertandbioactive.The former term is used for materials which have high stability and no biological reaction within the human body, while, on the contrary, the latter refers to compounds whose performances are improved by their interaction with the living tissues. In the last years, a wide range of bioactive materials, including sintered hydroxylapatite, glass ceramics and glasses, havebeendeveloped,ascoatingsonmetalsandmetal alloys,andappliedinthe®eldofarti®cialbones[1,2]. We have focalised our interest on bioactive glasses because these materials appear to be very promising, for their performance in promoting a rapid new bone formation. Traditionally bioactive glasses are depos- itedbyplasmasprayingandelectrophoreticdeposition methods [3±5] even though other useful techniques recently developed may be used. In particular pulsed laser ablation and deposition PLAD) is nowadays widelyusedinordertodepositmono-andmulti-layer thin®lmsofmaterialsoftechnologicalinterest.These include high T c superconductors, semiconductors, ferroelectrics, metals, metal alloys, dielectrics and Applied Surface Science 183 2001) 10±17 * Corresponding author. Tel.: 39-971-202225; fax: 39-971-202223. E-mail address: teghil@unibas.it R. Teghil). 0169-4332/01/$ ± see front matter # 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII:S0169-433201)00466-4