Deposition temperature effect on sputtered hydroxyapatite coatings prepared on AZ31B alloy substrate

The corrosion of Mg alloys is a provocative topic and it is still a challenge to find a solution for the improvement of their degradation rate into solution found in human body (Simulated Body Fluid, SBF). The aim of the present paper is to coat AZ31B alloy by hydroxyapatite (HAp) as a possible solution in order to change its degradation behaviour for medical implants. Since the Mg alloy is sensible to temperature while the HAp properties depend on the deposition temperature, in this study, the effect of deposition temperature on the properties of the AZ31Balloy was evaluated. The HAp coatings were prepared using the RF magnetron sputtering technique, ranging the temperature from the room one to 400 °C. It was found that the grain size of the investigated Mg alloy increased more than 100% when the deposition temperature was increased. By increasing the temperature, the hardness level was reduced of about 15%. All HAp coatings revealed corrosion behaviour much better than the uncoated AZ31B alloy; in particular, the coating deposited at 200 °C exhibited the best corrosion behavior. Moreover, the best protection to the corrosive attack of SBF was found for the HAp coating deposited at 200 °C (97.3%), which was also characterized by the lowest porosity. To conclude, HAp coatings can be used to improve the properties of AZ31B alloys, but just up to 200 °C; beyond this temperature, the mechanical and the anticorrosion properties are lost.