Variable length scale analysis of surface topography: characterization of titanium surfaces for biomedical applications

A method for characterizing the surface topography at several length scales is presented. The analysis is based on a log-log representation of a chara cteristic roughness parameter versus the length scale. It is applicable to fractal and non-fractal surfaces. The potential of the method is evaluated by applying it to the characterization of computed self-affine fractal prof iles of different fractal dimension. Profiles of titanium surfaces with dif ferent morphologies were measured with an optical profilometer and with an atomic force microscope. Variable length scale analysis of the data was per formed for the roughness parameters root mean square deviation, skewness an d kurtosis. Results show that the proposed method of data evaluation yields detailed information on length scale dependent surface topography, not ava ilable with classical roughness determinations. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S .A. All rights reserved.