The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 28, 2007
Filed:
Mar. 26, 2004
Ronghua Wei, San Antonio, TX (US);
Thomas L. Booker, San Antonio, TX (US);
Christopher Rincon, San Antonio, TX (US);
James H. Arps, San Antonio, TX (US);
Ronghua Wei, San Antonio, TX (US);
Thomas L. Booker, San Antonio, TX (US);
Christopher Rincon, San Antonio, TX (US);
James H. Arps, San Antonio, TX (US);
Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX (US);
Abstract
This invention is a method of forming a nitride layer on at least one metal or metal alloy biomedical device, comprising: providing a vacuum chamber with at least one biomedical device positioned thereon on a worktable within the vacuum chamber; reducing the pressure in the vacuum chamber; introducing nitrogen into the vacuum chamber so that the pressure in the vacuum chamber is about 0.01 to about 10 milli-Torr; generating electrons within the vacuum chamber to form positively charged nitrogen ions; providing a negative bias to the worktable so that the positively charged nitrogen ions contact the biomedical devices under conditions such that a nitride layer forms on the at least one prosthetic device.