COMPARISON BETWEEN CONVENTIONAL AND PLASMA SOURCE ION-IMPLANTED FEMORAL KNEE COMPONENTS

Nitrogen ion implantation of Ti-6Al-4V knee joint femoral components was carried out by both plasma source ion implantation (PSII), a non-line of sight technique, and conventional beamline implantation. Implantation using the PSII process was performed on a flat sample as well as a 2 x 2 square array of components to demonstrate batch processing capability. The retained dose of the flat sample and at different locations on the implanted components was measured by a scanning auger microprobe (SAM). The variation in dose of the PSII treated component was found to be within the SAM error, while the dose at one location on the beamline implanted component was found to be significantly low. For the beamline case, the SAM results show good agreement with the PC profile computer simulation, which includes the angular dependence of sputtering.