Laser Processing of Advanced Bioceramics

Abstract

In this article, laser processing of diamondlike carbon‐metal nanocomposite films, hydroxyapatite‐osteoblast composites, and Ormocer® microdevices for medical applications is described. Pulsed laser deposition has been used to process diamondlike carbon‐silver‐platinum nanocomposite films that provide hardness, wear resistance, corrosion resistance, and antimicrobial functionalities to cardiovascular, orthopaedic, biosensor, and MEMS devices. Laser direct writing has been used for fabricating integrated cell‐scaffold structures. Two photon induced polymerization has been used to create Ormocer® tissue engineering scaffolds and microneedles with unique geometries. Pulsed laser deposition, laser direct write, and two photon induced polymerization techniques may provide medical engineers with advanced biomaterials that possess unique structures and functionalities.

The use of functionally gradient materials in medicine

“…Although no universally accepted nomenclature has been agreed upon, amorphous carbon with some component of sp 3 -hybridized atoms is commonly referred to as diamondlike carbon (DLC). [35][36][37][38][39] These materials possess atomic number densities greater than 3.19 g atom/cm 3 , and may possess densities closer to that of diamond (3.51 g/cm 3 ) than that of graphite (2.26 g/cm 3 ). Diamondlike carbon has been considered for use as a coating for prosthetic joint materials because it possesses hardness, low friction, wear resistance, corrosion resistance, and immunity to scratching by third body wear particles.…”

Producing ORMOSIL scaffolds by femtosecond laser polymerization

“…Assemblies like microvalves for blood circulation were built by direct femtosecond laser writing [10]. ORMOCER (organically modified ceramic) microneedles for drug delivery [6,11,12], bone prosthetics and ossicular replacement prosthetics, as well as photonic crystals have also been fabricated [6,[13][14][15][16]. In [17], V. Melissinaki et al report on the neuronal cells growth, attachment, and viability on polylactidebased high resolution 3D scaffolds processed by direct laser writing.…”

Two-Photon Polymerization of Inorganic-Organic Hybrid Polymers as Scalable Technology Using Ultra-Short Laser Pulses

“…For example, micro-needle fabrication for drug delivery or the realization of scaffold structures using 2PP was already demonstrated Narayan et al, 2005;Ostendorf & Chichkov, 2006). Scaffolds for medical applications provide 3D structures with well-defined shapes with an interconnecting pore structure in the range of a few up to several hundreds of µm, thus mimicking the properties of extracellular matrices.…”