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 technique between bone and implant materials directly. Laser technique with high energy density is effective tool for bonding the different materials in short duration precisely. In this study, the laser technique for the bonding of bone and implant material has been proposed. The applications of laser technique 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 region. 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 sufficient bonding was achieved by the generation of melting region of HAp and bone with cavities by the evaporation of bone tissue.