Metallic intravascular stents are medical devices commonly made of 316L stainless steel or
nitinol used to scaffold a biological lumen, most often diseased arteries, after balloon angioplasty.
Stenting procedures reduce the risk of restenosis, but do not eliminate it completely. Indeed,
restenosis remains the principal cause of clinical complications, leading to up to 30 % of failure after
3 months of implantation. During the last few years, several works have been focused on the
development of an appropriate coating able to act as a carrier for specific anti-restenosis drugs.
Moreover, this coating would act as an anti-corrosive barrier, thus inhibiting the release of potentially
toxic ions. Actually, the main challenges in stent coatings are to synthesize a biocompatible polymer
coating resistant to blood flow, wall shear stress and tensile force after the stent deployment which
results in a permanent strain of up to 25%. The adhesion and chemical resistance after deployment are
critical properties to investigate for the improvement of the long-term reliability of polymer coated
stent. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of a 25% equivalent plastic deformation on
chemical, mechanical and adhesion properties of Teflon-like films deposited on 316L stainless steel.
These properties were studied by chemical spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy. Teflon-like
films were deposited by pulsed plasma glow discharges on flat electropolished 316L stainless steel.
An original method has been developed to induce the deformation, and preliminary results have
showed that the 12 nm thick Teflon-like films successfully resist to deformations of up to 25%.
Shearing force measurement device with a built-in integrated micro displacement sensor
