Fabrication of silver-doped titanium vanadium nitride (TiVN) coatings for biomedical applications

Abstract

The term “silver-doped vanadium titanium nitride” refers to a class of composite biomaterial that combines the characteristics of vanadium titanium nitride with silver's antibacterial and bioactive capabilities. Using the physical vapor deposition (PVD) technique, the coating was applied by first depositing a single layer of Titanium on a titanium substrate, followed by a layer of TiVN(Ag), with fixed power for the Titanium (450W) and vanadium (350W), and variable power for the silver (25–100W). Atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used to evaluate surface morphology, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was used to evaluate cross-sectional microstructural analysis of coatings, X-ray diffraction (XRD) was used to evaluate the phase formation of the coating, X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) was used to evaluate composition and atomic bonding, and finally, the biocompatibility test was conducted individually to evaluate the viability of MG-63 cells. Our results showed that the fluctuation of the silver concentration in the system impacts the microstructural and biological characteristics of the coating. The best balance between cell viability and microstructure was obtained using a sample of TiVN(Ag) and 50W of electricity.