Bottom-Up Cu Filling of High-Aspect-Ratio through-Diamond vias for 3D Integration in Thermal Management

Updates on Biomaterials Used in Total Hip Arthroplasty (THA)

One of the most popular and effective orthopedic surgical interventions for treating a variety of hip diseases is total hip arthroplasty. Despite being a radical procedure that involves replacing bone and cartilaginous surfaces with biomaterials, it produces excellent outcomes that significantly increase the patient's quality of life. Patient factors and surgical technique, as well as biomaterials, play a role in prosthetic survival, with aseptic loosening (one of the most common causes of total hip arthroplasty failure) being linked to the quality of biomaterials utilized. Over the years, various biomaterials have been developed to limit the amount of wear particles generated over time by friction between the prosthetic head (metal alloys or ceramic) and the insert fixed in the acetabular component (polyethylene or ceramic). An ideal biomaterial must be biocompatible, have a low coefficient of friction, be corrosion resistant, and have great mechanical power. Comprehensive knowledge regarding what causes hip arthroplasty failure, as well as improvements in biomaterial quality and surgical technique, will influence the survivability of the prosthetic implant. The purpose of this article was to assess the benefits and drawbacks of various biomaterial and friction couples used in total hip arthroplasties by reviewing the scientific literature published over the last 10 years.

Fabrication and Characterization of Thin Metal Films Deposited by Electroless Plating with Organic Additives for Electrical Circuits Applications

In our work, we studied thin nickel films deposited by electroless plating for use as a barrier and seed layer in the through-silicon vias (TSV) technology. El-Ni coatings were deposited on a copper substrate from the original electrolyte and with the use of various concentrations of organic additives in the composition of the electrolyte. The surface morphology, crystal state, and phase composition of the deposited coatings were studied by SEM, AFM, and XRD methods. The El-Ni coating deposited without the use of an organic additive has an irregular topography with rare phenocrysts of globular formations of hemispherical shape and a root mean square roughness value of 13.62 nm. The phosphorus concentration in the coating is 9.78 wt.%. According to the results of the X-ray diffraction studies of El-Ni, the coating deposited without the use of an organic additive has a nanocrystalline structure with an average nickel crystallite size of 2.76 nm. The influence of the organic additive is seen in the smoothening of the samples surface. The root mean square roughness values of the El-Ni sample coatings vary within 2.09-2.70 nm. According to microanalysis data the phosphorus concentration in the developed coatings is ~4.7-6.2 wt.%. The study of the crystalline state of the deposited coatings by X-ray diffraction made it possible to detect two arrays of nanocrystallites in their structure, with average sizes of 4.8-10.3 nm and 1.3-2.6 nm.

Polycrystalline Diamond as a Potential Material for the Hard-on-Hard Bearing of Total Hip Prosthesis: Von Mises Stress Analysis

Due to polymeric wear debris causing osteolysis from polymer, metal ions causing metallosis from metal, and brittle characteristic causing fracture failure from ceramic in the application on bearing of total hip prosthesis requires the availability of new material options as a solution to these problems. Polycrystalline diamond (PCD) has the potential to become the selected material for hard-on-hard bearing in view of its advantages in terms of mechanical properties and biocompatibility. The present study contributes to confirming the potential of PCD to replace metals and ceramics for hard-on-hard bearing through von Mises stress investigations. A computational simulation using a 2D axisymmetric finite element model of hard-on-hard bearing under gait loading has been performed. The percentage of maximum von Mises stress to respective yield strength from PCD-on-PCD is the lowest at 2.47%, with CoCrMo (cobalt chromium molybdenum)-on-CoCrMo at 10.79%, and Al₂O₃ (aluminium oxide)-on-Al₂O₃ at 13.49%. This confirms that the use of PCD as a hard-on-hard bearing material is the safest option compared to the investigated metal and ceramic hard-on-hard bearings from the mechanical perspective.