Influence of Oxygen Partial Pressure on Hydroxyapatite Coating of Additive Manufactured Component by Pulsed Laser Deposition

Additive manufactured polyamide substrate has a wide range of application in the medical field due to its good mechanical property and biological behaviour. The biocompatibility of this polyamide is further enhanced by coating Hydroxyapatite (HA) over the surface, Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) has become widely used technique to deposit HA, because the film obtained by this method will have better crystalline and required surface roughness which facilitates a better osseointegration. This work aims to deposit HA over polyamide substrate using PLD with different oxygen partial pressures of 2 × 10⁻⁴, 2 × 10⁻³ and 2 × 10⁻² Torr. The characterization of coating was performed by Scanning Electron Microscope with Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). These results suggest that the surface microstructure, crystallinity and surface roughness has significant changes when the oxygen pressure was varied. Therefore, the oxygen pressure plays a key role in the quality HA layer developed using Pulsed Laser Disposition.