Ion beam-assisted diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings have beenused for growing the human platelet, fibrinogen, and albumin in the control environment in order to assess their hemocompatibility. The hard carbon films were prepared on polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) at room temperature using ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD). Raman spectroscopic analysis proved that the carbon films on PMMA are diamond-like with a higher fraction of sp\+3 bonds in the structure of mixed sp\+2+sp\+3 bonding. The blood protein adsorption tests showed that DLC coatings can adsorb more albumin and are slightly more fibrinogen than the PMMA chosen as a control sample. The platelets adhered on DLC coatings were reduced significantly in number. These results indicate good hemocompatibility of DLC coatings.
Carboxyl ion (COOH+) implantation was performed at 50 keV with different fluences for polypropylene. Hemocompatibility tests show that blood coagulation time and recalcification time of polypropylene were enhanced significantly with the increasing fluence. At the same time, the human endothelial cells grown on the surface of the implanted samples exhibited normal cellular growth and morphology. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and water contact angle analysis showed that COOH+ ion implantation rearranges chemical bonds and produces some new polar O-containing groups on the surface. The formation of polar functional groups, together with increase of roughness, induced an increase in hydrophilicity, which in turn improved the surface hemocompatibility of polypropylene.
