Additive manufacturing using selective laser melted titanium (SLM-Ti) is used to create bespoke items across many diverse fields such as medicine, defense, and aerospace. Despite great progress in orthopedic implant applications, such as for "just in time" implants, significant challenges remain with regards to material osseointegration and the susceptibility to bacterial colonization on the implant. Here, we show that polycrystalline diamond coatings on these titanium samples can enhance biological scaffold interaction improving medical implant applicability. The highly conformable coating exhibited excellent bonding to the substrate. Relative to uncoated SLM-Ti, the diamond coated samples showed enhanced mammalian cell growth, enriched apatite deposition, and reduced microbial S. aureus activity. These results open new opportunities for novel coatings on SLM-Ti devices in general and especially show promise for improved biomedical implants.

Additively manufactured selective laser melted titanium (SLM-Ti) opens the possibility of tailored medical implants for patients. Despite orthopedic implant advancements, significant problems remain with regard to suboptimal osseointegration at the interface between the implant and the surrounding tissue. Here, we show that applying a nanodiamond (ND) coating onto SLM-Ti scaffolds provides an improved surface for mammalian cell growth while inhibiting colonization of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. Owing to the simplicity of our methodology, the approach is suitable for coating SLM-Ti geometries. The ND coating achieved 32 and 29% increases in cell density of human dermal fibroblasts and osteoblasts, respectively, after 3 days of incubation compared with the uncoated SLM-Ti substratum. This increase in cell density complements an 88% reduction in S. aureus detected on the ND-coated SLM-Ti substrata. This study paves a way to create facile antifouling SLM-Ti structures for biomedical implants.

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