Sol–gel derived bioactive glasses have been extensively explored as a promising and highly porous scaffold materials for bone tissue regeneration applications owing to their exceptional osteoconductivity, osteostimulation and degradation rates.

Titanium is commonly and successfully used in dental and orthopedic implants. However, patients still have to face the risk of implant failure due to various reasons, such as implant loosening or infection. The risk of implant loosening can be countered by optimizing the osteointegration capacity of implant materials. Implant surface modifications for structuring, roughening and biological activation in favor for osteogenic differentiation have been vastly studied. A key factor for a successful stable long‐term integration is the initial cellular response to the implant material. Hence, cell–material interactions, which are dependent on the surface parameters, need to be considered in the implant design. Therefore, this review starts with an introduction to the basics of cell–material interactions as well as common surface modification techniques. Afterwards, recent research on the impact of osteogenic processes in vitro and vivo provoked by various surface modifications is reviewed and discussed, in order to give an update on currently applied and developing implant modification techniques for enhancing osteointegration.

In this work, advanced polymer nanocomposites comprising of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and nanodiamonds (NDs) were developed using a single-step solution-casting method. The properties of the prepared PVA/NDs nanocomposites were investigated using Raman spectroscopy, small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS/WAXS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). It was revealed that the tensile strength improved dramatically with increasing ND content in the PVA matrix, suggesting a strong interaction between the NDs and the PVA. SEM, TEM, and SAXS showed that NDs were present in the form of agglomerates with an average size of ~60 nm with primary particles of diameter ~5 nm. These results showed that NDs could act as a good nanofiller for PVA in terms of improving its stability and mechanical properties.