Spring 2013
Nano Roughness MEA – Company Profile & Memo
Company Profile – Liguore Laboratories
Liguore Laboratories is an emerging technology company founded in 1996 to develop nanostructured
materials that improve performance and extend the life of coated orthopedic and biomedical implants.
The coating of orthopedic implants, such as joint replacements, is undertaken with the aim of either
increasing the wear resistance of the implant materials or providing an implant surface that increases the
biocompatibility of the implant with the surrounding host bone. This increase in biocompatibility leads to
formation of new bone around the implant resulting in better fixation and improved long-term
performance of the replacement joint. Our company produces coatings for biomedical devices such as
artery stents, bone screws, fixation devices, and bone spacers.
Liguore Laboratories utilizes surface coating techniques to apply a full range of bioactive coatings to
orthopedic and biomedical implants manufactured by several global manufacturers. The coatings include
titanium, hydroxyapatite, alumina/titania, gold, calcium phosphate, and other alloys. Our company has
met and exceeded all industry and health standards for the United States and Europe.
One of our more recent developments is the use of gold to coat artery stents. Liguore Laboratories
scientists found that gold, when heated, makes a smooth surface coating for implants. The stents coated
with lower roughness gold possess more biocompatibility than stents coated with stainless steel.
Liguore Laboratories has assembled a talented group of scientists and engineers who possess an in-depth
understanding of the processes available for synthesizing the end product. They consult regularly with
leading biomaterials scientists, cell biologists, and clinical researchers within the global community to
develop innovative products that meet the clinicians' needs.
Liguore Laboratories is on the cutting edge of technology in the biomedical coatings industry. Our
mission is to create medical device coatings that provide performance and durability.
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Spring 2013
Nano Roughness MEA – Company Profile & Memo
INTEROFFICE MEMO: LIGUORE LABS
TO:
NANOSURFACE ENGINEERING TEAM
FROM:
KERRY PRIOR, VICE PRESIDENT OF RESEARCH
RE:
SURFACE ROUGHNESS
Liguore Labs is very interested in the innovations of biomedical science. New research pertaining to coatings
for artificial hip replacements could represent a new venture for our company. Recently, a physicist from
University of Alabama, Birmingham named Dr. Yogesh Vohra accidentally produced smooth diamond. When
making synthetic diamond crystals in a laboratory, the gas reactor sprang a small leak and let air into the
mixture. Nitrogen from the air reacted with the carbon of the diamond. The array of diamond created was
smooth and adhered very easily to metal. Because diamond is durable, it makes a very good candidate for
coating artificial hip replacements. The current coatings wear down or loosen from constant use after about
10 years, which could mean more surgery for the recipient. The diamond coating is projected to last around
40 years, which would improve the comfort and health of the patient.
Liguore Laboratories would like to expand our product line to include diamond coatings for hip joints. The
research laboratory is working on replicating the smooth diamond coating. In order for our Materials Research
Team to know whether their production process is working (achieving the desired level of smoothness), they
need a quick and easy-to-use procedure to quantify the roughness of the nanoscale diamond coatings
produced in the lab.
Since we have experience with gold coatings and have many AFM images and data sets available, your team
can use these to develop a procedure to quantify the roughness of new coatings. Your team will be provided
with three atomic force microscope (AFM) images and associated data for gold coatings that we have
produced in our artery stent research lab. These images and data are described in the attached Background
Information attached. Your team needs to create a procedure using these images and data as a reference to
quantify the roughness at the nanoscale. Your team also needs to apply your procedure to the AFM gold
images and data. With this procedure in place, our Materials Research Team will be able to quickly quantify
the roughness of the diamond coating samples as they are produced.
In a memo to my attention, please include your team’s procedure for quantifying roughness of the nanoscale
material using the AFM images and data. For this first iteration, provide results of applying your
procedure to the AFM gold image and data Sample C only. Please be sure to include your team’s
reasoning for the each step, heuristic (i.e. rule), or consideration in your team’s procedure.
Thank you for your team’s efforts in this endeavor. The expansion of our product line is an important venture
for Liguore Laboratories. I appreciate your prompt attention to this assignment.
Kerry Prior
Attached: Background Information
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Spring 2013
Nano Roughness MEA – Company Profile & Memo
Background Information: The two images on this page are images of smooth diamond
from Dr. Vohra’s lab. Figure 1a is a top-view image of the diamond. Figure 1b is a 3dimensional side-view of the same sample. The color bar on the right indicates the height of
the diamond surface.
Remember that:
μm stands for micrometers (1 μm = 10-6 m)
nm stands for nanometers (1 nm = 10-9 m)
Å stands for Angstroms (1 Å = 10-10 m)
Figure 1a. Top-view AFM image of smooth diamond.
Figure 1b. Three-dimensional AFM image of smooth diamond.
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Spring 2013
Nano Roughness MEA – Company Profile & Memo
AFM Images: (AFM data courtesy of Purdue Nanoscale Physics Lab)
The three images below (Samples A, B, and C) are top-view images of gold that are provided for
use in developing your team’s procedure for quantifying roughness. The colorbar on the right
indicates the height of the gold surface. These images are generated from AFM data which
consists of the cantilever’s (X,Y) location and local height as the cantilever is drawn over the
surface of the sample. For instance, the first few and the last few data points for Sample A
would be:
WSxM file copyright Nanotec Electronica
WSxM ASCII XYZ file
X[µm]
Y[µm]
Z[Å]
0.000000
0.011742
0.023483
….
…..
5.976517
5.988258
6.000000
0.000000
0.000000
0.000000
675.345
671.311
667.278
6.000000
6.000000
6.000000
332.301
343.649
372.94
These height values can be arranged into an array and then translated into color values (in this
case grayscale values) so that the data can be visualized. The total number of (X,Y,height) data
points to generate a complete image can be quite large - for Sample A it is 262,146. Your team
is provided with a slice of each of the three data sets so that you do not have to handle such large
data sets (which could crash your computer) but still get give you a sense of the data.
Three AFM data files are available for your team to use to as a reference when developing your
procedure. The filenames are indicated with the images below. In the Excel file, you will find
two worksheet tabs:
 goldSampleX_view100%: is a slice of the height data arranged in an array according to
the (X,Y) locations (the X,Y locations are noted across columnA,row1, respectively, in
µm). Cells in which the height data are stored (in Å = angstrom) are conditionally
formatted for grayscaling so that the image appears when the spreadsheet is zoomed to
10%. This sheet is set to view at 100% so that you can see and use the height values.
 goldSampleX_view10%: is identical to goldSampleX_view100%, but the view is set to
10% so that you can view the image slice. Note that the image slice constructed in Excel
is the bottom portion of each of the images below rotated 90 degrees.
Spring 2013
Nano Roughness MEA – Company Profile & Memo
Sample A - goldSampleA.xlsx
Sample B - goldsampleB.xlsx
Spring 2013
Nano Roughness MEA – Company Profile & Memo
Sample C - goldSampleC.xlsx