Laser bonding of hydroxyapatite ceramics

Abstract

Orthopaedic implants have been fixed to bone tissue by other artificial materials such as bone cement or clinical screws. It is important to develop the bonding tecimique between bone and implant materials directly. Laser tecimique with high energy density is effective tool for bonding the different materials in short duration precisely. In this study, the laser tecimique for the bonding of bone and implant material has been proposed. The applications of laser tecimique were examined for the sintered (HAp), glass-added hydroxyapatite (G-HAp) and bone tissue. As a result of laser irradiation on brittle HAp, the cracks appeared near the melting itgion. However, on G-HAp containing cordierite-glass ceramics with a low linear expansion coefficient, crack-generation was reduced and performance of laser processing improved. The application for the bonding of bone and G-HAp showed that a stifficient bonding was achieved by the generation of melting region of HAp and bone with cavities by the evaporation of bone tissue. © 2011 The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers.