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Abstract: The present work describes the surface improvement and biocompatibility of TiAl24Nb10 intermetallic alloy using rf plasma nitriding. The nitriding process was carried out at different plasma power from 400W to 650W where the other plasma conditions were fixed. Grazing incidence X-ray diffractometry (GIXRD), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), tribometer and a nanohardness tester were employed to characterize the nitrided layer. Further potentiodynamic polarization method was used to describe the corrosion behavior of the un-nitrided and nitrided alloy. It has been found that the Vickers hardness (HV) and corrosion resistance values of the nitrided layers increase with increasing plasma power while the wear rates of the nitrided layers reduce by two orders of magnitude as compared to those of the un-nitrided layer. This improvement in surface properties of the intermetallic alloy is due to formation of a thin modified layer which is composed of titanium nitride in the alloy surface. Moreover, all modified layers were tested for their sustainability as a biocompatible material. Concerning the application area of biocompatibility, the present treated alloy show good surface properties especially for the nitrided alloy at low plasma power of 400W. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The albumin adsorption on non-hydrogenated amorphous carbon films with different diamond-like character (i.e. sp3 content) is addressed. The films were produced by ion beam assisted deposition and by filtered cathodic vacuum arc deposition to obtain a wide range of sp3 contents. A combination of the spectroscopic ellipsometry, Raman spectroscopy and elastic recoil detection analysis was used for characterization of the films. It is shown that an increase of the deposition temperature leads to a decrease of the film band gap, density and a shift of the Raman G-band position. The wettability of the film is not influenced by its sp3 content. Albumin adsorption on the surface depends more on its wetting behavior than on the sp3 content. In addition, Ar ion treatment of the layers can be used to reduce the amount of adsorbed proteins. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]