Dissolution/reprecipitation of calcium phosphate thin films produced by ion beam sputter deposition technique

The dissolution, reprecipitation and protein adsorption properties of amorphous CaP bioceramic thin films produced with an ion beam sputter deposition technique using hydroxyapatite (HA) and fluorapatite (FA) as starting materials were studied using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) with attenuated total internal reflectance (ATR). Our studies showed that these amorphous CaP coatings dissolved to a greater extent when exposed to bovine serum albumin (BSA) in saline solution when compared to a protein free saline solution. Analysis of changes in infrared spectra revealed that coatings exposed to BSA solution exhibited a higher degree of crystalline structure after dissolution/reprecipitation than those exposed to saline alone. There was the indication that the association of inorganic and organic contents was achieved on the coating surface in BSA solution. We could detect no significant difference between the coatings produced from HA and FA targets. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.