S Joughehdoust - biomedical engineering Faculty of Islamic Azad University, Science & Research Branch Center, Tehran-Iran (corresponding author)
A Behnamghader - department of Materials and Energy Research Center, tehran
A Afshar - department of Material Science and engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran.

In this investigation, fluor-hydroxyapatite (FHA) film was deposited on a titanium substrate by sol-gel method. Triethyl phosphite, ammonium fluoride and calcium nitrate in ethanol solutions were used respectively as P, F and Ca precursors. Typical apatite structures were obtained for all coatings after dipping and subsequent heat treatment at 550, 700 and 800 ºC. The coating layers were investigated with SEM, XRD and FT-IR spectroscopy. The XRD results showed that the coatings heat treated at 550 ºC were only composed of HA and FA but the rutile (TiO2) phase was also identified in the coatings heat treated at higher temperatures. In addition, the formation of fluor-hydroxyapatite was confirmed by FT-IR results. Despite of the similar granular microstructure of apatite in the samples heat treated at 550 and 700 ºC, the crystalline grains of rutile were clearly visible in the samples heat treated at 800 ºC.