Mechanical Surface Behavior of ZrN and TiN Coated Dental Screw by Ion-Plating Method

The abutment screw loosening of dental implant system has been remained problem in restorative practices. Surface treatment of screw plays a role of preventing screw from loosening in implant screw mechanism. The purpose of this study was to investigate surface characteristics of ZrN and TiN coated dental gold-screw and Ti-screw by ion-plating method and to evaluate wear resistance, surface roughness, and film adhesion on the screw surface using field emission scanning electron microscopy(FE-SEM), energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy(EDX), micro-diamond scratch tester, vickers hardness tester, and surface roughness tester. The surface of gold screw and GoldTite is more smoothly than ones of other kinds of non coated screw. The ZrN and TiN coated surface is more smoothly than ones of other kinds of screw. The hardness of TiN and ZrN coated surface showed higher than that of non coated surface. The TiN coated titanium screw and ZrN coated gold screw have a good wear resistance and adhesion on the surface. The surface of ZrN coated screw showed low surface roughness compared with the surface of TiN coated screw.