Diamond Coating of Hip Joint Replacement: Improvement of Durability.

Despite the success of surgical implants such as artificial hip, materials used in these procedures still do not satisfy the demands of human life time functioning. Currently used materials such as titanium alloys, ceramics and polymers are degraded after about a dozen years of use. Diamond coating technology has proven to be efficient in the performance of human joints. In this study, we have investigated the deposition of diamond thin films on Ti6Al4V using a new developed time-modulated Chemical Vapour Deposition (TMCVD) method. Finite element simulations were used to analyse the development of residual stresses. Micro Raman spectroscopy was also used to evaluate the residual stresses and compare with numerical models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]