Enhancement of biocompatibility of diamond-like carbon films implanted with phosphorus utilizing pulsed high-voltage glow discharge plasma immersion ion implanation and deposition

Abstract

Summary form only given. Diamond like carbon (DLC) films possess superior properties such as high chemical inertness, mechanical hardness and wear resistance. They have been commercially used a protective coatings in many applications. DLC films are also know to be biocompatibility materials and they are potentially useful and biomedical coatings. In order to enhance their biocompatibility, we fabricated phosphorus doped DLC films. Acetylene (C/sub 2/H/sub 2/) gas was first used to deposit the DLC films followed by phosphorus ion implantation in the same plasma immersion ion implantation & deposition instrument. The phosphorus plasma was ignited by pulsed high-voltage glow discharge. Different experimental parameters such as pulse width and frequency were used to produce a series of samples. The surface tension of the samples was calculated using the sessile drop method, whereas chemical and structural characterization was performed utilizing various techniques such as Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Our results show that the surface tension of the phosphorus implanted DLC films differ greatly from that of the un-implanted DLC films. The wettability of the films was also improved by P implantation and so P-doped DLC possesses better surface biocompatibility than the undoped counterpart. We will also describe the possible mechanism for the enhanced wettability.