INVITED: New generation of ceramic thin film coatings for implants and medical instruments

The number of applications involving thin film coatings on implants and surgical instruments/tools have been steadily increasing  generating greater needs in terms of innovation of coatings, application technologies and processes.  Thin film coatings are prone to increase the lifetime of implants as less ions are released from the metallic implant-substrate and less corrosion processes are observed on coated implants. The increase of the implant-lifetime will also allow younger patients to have an implant which they might need due to sports injuries or other accidents. On the implant bearing surfaces, the contact between UHMWPE and coatings is substantially preferred compared to UHMWPE with metal as less debris are formed, less wear and potentially leading to less inflammation and pain. In this way patients are submitted less often to implant revision surgeries; it appears that thin film coating is strongly helping in improving patients life and It probably contributing to reduce costs of healthcare as bottom line result.

For achieving such result older generation PVD cathodic arc coatings can make it however newer smooth coatings are promising. Less defects, less pin holes, lower sticking factor to the counter surfaces, the new generation of coatings allows to be one step further in performance for the purpose described above. Silicon nitride coatings as well as other metal nitrides in the form of multilayer or quaternary nitrides deposited with new vacuum plasma technologies will be presented and compared.

An overview of new coating developments and application of coatings on instruments will be given with special focus on DLC coatings made out of large PVD/PACVD industrial chambers where little additional investment in coating represents an extensive improvement in anti-reflection properties as well as cleaning and sterilization cycles keeping the instruments with a perfect cosmetic appearance.