Titanium has been used in bio-medical implants for decades due to its superior biocompatibility. To improve the osseointegration of dental and orthopaedic implants, various surface modification techniques have been used including laser surface texturing. In particular, short-pulsed lasers, such as femtosecond and picosecond lasers, are widely used for surface modification. In this thesis, commercially pure Ti surfaces are modified by a femtosecond laser to explore the relationship between surface topography, surface chemistry, surface wettability, and biocompatibility with the goal of improving the osseointegration of implants. The laser textured surfaces consist of 1μm wide grooves spaced 10 μm, 4.8 μm, 2.4 μm and 1.2 μm apart. Gradient configurations where the groove spacing varies are also investigated. Surface morphology was characterized using Optical Microscopy (OM), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). A custom-build contact angle measurement apparatus is used to investigate the wettability of the laser textured surfaces using the sessile drop method. Freshly laser-treated commercially pure Ti surfaces are found to be super-hydrophilic and become hydrophobic over time when exposed to air. The presence of grooves can accelerate the evolution of the contact angle over time, and introduces anisotropy in the wetting behavior (along vs. across the grooves). The hydrophilicity of laser treated surfaces can be retained by storing samples in ethanol. X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) shows that the relative carbon content increases over time when Ti samples are exposed to air, which results in the subsequent evolution of the contact angle and cell response to laser textured Ti surfaces. Besides, laser treatment promotes the oxidation of pure Ti, and the product, TiO2, is responsible for the better biocompatibility. In vitro experiments using MG 63s osteoblast-like cells are implemented on laser-treated Ti surfaces and polished surfaces (control) with 1 day, 3 days and 7 days of cell culture. The best cell outcome was obtained by storing samples in air for 1 week, where storing for shorter or longer times resulted in the worst outcome, especially in the early stages of cell adhesion. There does not appear to be a direct link between wettability and the fate of cells on Ti surfaces. Indeed, while samples stored in air and ethanol have drastically different contact angle measurements (the former being hydrophobic and the latter hydrophilic), the cell behavior was unaffected. In addition, while wettability and laser treatment can affect the early stages of cell adhesion, they do not have a strong effect on the number of cells at longer incubation times (3 and 7 days). Laser machining does however affect the cell morphology and alignment, where cells preferentially align themselves parallel to the direction of the laser machined grooves with an elongated morphology.

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Wood is often combined with other materials such as thermoplastics, adhesives and coatings. In general, combinations of wood and polymers especially in outdoor exposure have poor long-term durability. This behaviour can be related to an insufficient wood-polymer adhesion due to the low intrinsic compatibility between the wood substance and the polymers used. Another source for woodpolymer de-bonding is the high hygroscopicity of wood and great difference in hygro-thermal properties between the components. The basic conceptual idea related to this work is to reduce the hygrosensitivity of wood by applying different wood modification methods, in particular, acetylation, furfurylation and heat treatment. The effects of such chemical modifications of wood, also accompanied with ageing effects, on its adhesion properties with commonly used synthetic polymers are, however, not well understood. In this context, the over-all purpose of this thesis is to achieve a better understanding of wood-polymer adhesion and interfacial forces which also may guide us to tailor the interaction between modified wood and e.g. thermoplastics and adhesives. The main focus of this thesis is therefore to apply contact angle analysis based on the Chang-Qin-Chen (CQC) Lewis acid-base model in order to estimate the work of adhesion (Wa) between the wood, modified wood and certain polymers. Contact angle measurements on wood samples were performed based on the Wilhelm plate principle. Related to this, an effort was also made to characterize the studied modified wood surfaces according to morphology and chemical composition. The methods that have been used are low vacuum scanning electron microscopy (LV-SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS). Results show that so-called interaction parameters can be successfully estimated for prediction of Wa between wood and polymers using the applied CQC model. Furthermore, such wetting analysis was successfully related to spectroscopic findings of the chemical composition of the wood samples surface. Ageing effects, i.e. the time after preparation of the wood surface, play a central role for the surface characteristics. In most cases, ageing resulted in a significant decrease of Wa between wood and water and a moderate decrease between wood and thermoplastics. The surface characteristics of acetylated wood were, however, more stable over time compared to unmodified, furfurylated and heat treated wood. The predicted Wa with the adhesives for heat treated and acetylated wood was increased due to ageing. Future work is planned to involve studies in order to relate such predicted adhesion properties with the actual performance of various wood-polymer systems. / QC 20101108

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