PVD-grown antibacterial Ag-TiN films on piezoelectric PVDF substrates for sensor applications

This work reports on Ti1-xAgx and Ag-TiNx electrodes deposited by dc/pulsed dc magnetron sputtering at room temperature on poly (vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) with the purpose to develop sensors for prosthesis. In Ti1-xAgx electrodes, silver content was varied from 0-100 at. %; and for Ag-TiNx electrodes, the nitrogen content was varied between 34 to 43 at. % and the Ti/Ag ratio changed from 12.2 to 5.2. The antibacterial activity of the samples was AC C EP TE D M AN U SC R IP T ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 2 assessed by agar diffusion method. Interestingly, samples from the Ag-TiNx series presented antibacterial activity, in contrast to the samples from Ti1-xAgx series. XPS results showed that the as-deposited samples from the Ag-TiNx series exhibited silver clusters smaller than 4 nm. In order to deepen the results obtained, samples were analysed after the Halo test (antibacterial test), and XPS analyses showed the disappearance of these Ag clusters in agreement with the SEM results, which displayed a visible aggregation and a significant decrease in the number of Ag clusters, suggesting that silver nanoparticles aggregated and diffused through the agar killing bacteria or inhibiting their grown in the vicinity. All results show that Ag-TiNx electrodes are more promising candidates to be used in PVDF sensor protection than Ti1-xAgx electrodes.