Simple fabrication of hollow poly-lactic acid microspheres using uniform microbubbles as templates

A simple method was developed that uses microbubbles as templates to fabricate hollow microspheres covered with a biodegradable polymer. By stably keeping microbubbles with the diameter of about 2 µm inside a solvent droplet dissolving a biodegradable polymer and then slowly drying the solvent, hollow microspheres that had an average inner diameter of about 2 µm and a shell thickness of about 500 nm were obtained. This simple method was successfully used to easily fabricate uniform hollow microspheres covered with poly-lactic acid (PLA) by using uniform 2-µm-diameter bubbles as templates.