Carbon Containing Titanium Coating for Ti6Al4V Implants

Ti6Al4V alloy is commonly material employed in orthopaedic implants, especially in knee joint applications due to its good corrosion resistance in biological media. 

But mechanical loads, wear and corrosion effects present in this type of systems, can affect drastically the system properties provoking the prosthesis failure and the need of component replacement. One alternative for improving the corrosion and fretting resistance of these biomaterials is the application of protective and biocompatible diamond like coatings (DLC). In this work, a type of metallic Ti-DLC coating deposited by physical vapour deposition (PVD) cathodic arc method on Ti6Al4V substrate is proposed. Different deposition process parameters were analyzed in order to determine the mechanic-chemical properties of the coated substrates. Corrosion, tribocorrosion and fretting properties of these films are analyzed and compared with the substrate ones in simulated biological fluids.