Fe-doped hydroxyapatite coatings for orthopedic and dental implant applications

•Pulsed laser deposition was applied to coat titanium for biomedical applications.•Iron-substituted hydroxyapatite (Fe-HAp) was used as coating material.•Properties of deposited films were characterized by complementary techniques.•Compact, hard, nanostructured, 1.5μm thick Fe-HAp (0.28wt.% Fe) films were prepared. In the present study, the pulsed laser deposition technique was applied to coat titanium for orthopedic and dental implant applications. Iron-substituted hydroxyapatite (Fe-HAp) (0.28wt.% of Fe) was used as coating material since titanium itself is unable to elicit biologically functional bone/material interface. The obtained Fe-HAp crystalline films are nanostructured (35nm mean crystallite size) and possess the following characteristics: dense and compact microstructure, irregular surface with average roughness of about 0.3μm, thickness of 1.5μm and intrinsic Vickers microhardness of 17GPa.