Titanium dioxide thin films with a rutile crystallinite size around 20 nm were fabri- cated by pulsed laser deposition （PLD） aided with an electron cyclotron resonance （ECR） plasma. With annealing treatment, the crystal size of the rutile crystallinite increased to 100 nm. The apatite-forming ability of the films as deposited and after annealing was investigated in a kind of simulated body fluid with ion concentrations nearly equal to those of human blood plasma. The results indicate that ECR aided PLD is an effective way both to fabricate bioactive titanium dioxide thin films and to optimize the bioactivity of titanium dioxide, with both crystal size and defects of the film taken into account.
