Surface modification has shown great potential for improving the hemocompatibility of
biomedical materials and devices. In this paper we describe our work on improving blood compatibility with Ti–O thin films prepared by unbalanced DC magnetron sputtering. The structure and surface chemical and physical properties of the films were characterized by X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), SEM, sheet resistance tests, and Hall effect measurements. The sheet resistance of the titanium oxide samples increased with oxygen pressure and shows a sharp increase when only TiO2 exists in the films. The band gap, carrier density and sheet resistance of the titanium oxide films synthesized at different oxygen pressure are different. These properties affect blood compatibility significantly. We suggest that the semiconducting nature of n-type Ti–O films with bandgap 3.0~3.2 eV, sheet resistance greater than 1 Ω.cm and carrier density of about 1.17 x 1016cm-2 leads to their excellent blood compatibility.
