Definition of biomaterials and biocompatibility. Review of the chemical bond, definition of solid-state and classification of the main classes of solids and their main defects. Biocompatible materials. Polymeric materials: definition, characteristics, mechanical and chemical-physical properties and uses in medicine. Ceramic materials: definition, synthesis and chemical-physical characteristics, bio-inert, bioactive, bio-absorbable ceramics. Fundamentals of crystallography; general principles of diffractive techniques; illustration of the main electron and X-ray diffraction techniques. Fundamentals of powder diffraction, experimental techniques; polymorphism and phase transitions in solid state. Thermodynamic characterization: thermal analyses. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM): operating principles, electron-matter interaction and signal detection, image generation, interpretations of the images associated with the detected signals, criteria for sample preparation; applications. Energy dispersion microanalysis (EDS).
