The effect of two reactive gases on the properties of bioactive glass thin films produced by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) was studied. The ablation of a bioactive silica-based glass was carried out by an ArF excimer laser (lambda = 193 nm, phi = 4.2 J cm(-2), tau = 25 ns,f = 10 Hz) at various pressures of Si2H6/Ar and NH3/Ar reactive mixtures. The bonding configuration and chemical environment of the resulting coatings were followed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The composition and bond arrangement of bioactive glass films were tuned by varying the chamber atmosphere. The results show how to adjust film characteristics for osteointegration of implants. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.