Titanium is extensively utilized as a material for dental implants owing to its excellent biocompatibility, corrosion resistance and strength. However, peri-implant inflammation may occur due to oral bacteria. To mitigate such inflammation, various approaches have been developed, including materials doped with antimicrobial elements, surface modification techniques and coatings by plating or thermal spraying. Laser-based deposition of pure copper was investigated as an alternative coating method. Pure copper exhibits excellent antimicrobial properties, with the ability to inactivate a broad range of bacterial species within a short time. Furthermore, the laser coating process employs a focused laser to melt and solidify both the substrate and the coating material, enabling selective coatings with high adhesive strength. This technique holds promise for controlling bacterial colonization and realizing of durable antimicrobial coatings. Accordingly, applying a pure copper coating to the abutment region of titanium dental implants may offer an effective strategy for suppressing peri-implant inflammation. In our presentation, we attempted to form a pure copper coating on a titanium substrate using multi-beam laser metal deposition (LMD) with blue diode lasers (B-LMD). Blue diode laser exhibits a high light absorption rate for pure copper, enabling highly efficient processing. In the multi-beam LMD process, metal powder is supplied vertically to the substrate while multiple laser beams are irradiated around the powder flow. By uniformly heating powder in-flight, melting of the substrate is minimized, allowing formation of a thin coating layer of about 100 µm in thickness, with reduced thermal effect compared to conventional LMD systems.
Keywords
- Coating
- Laser Metal Deposition(Lmd)
- Pure Copper
- Titanium