Polymer microspheres with uniform size, composition, and surface property have gained extensive researches in past decades. Conventional bottom-up approaches are using monomers or oligomers to build up desired polymer microspheres. However, directly shaping high-molecular-weight polymers into well-ordered polymer microspheres remains a great challenge. Herein, we reported a facile and efficient top-down approach to fabricate microspheres with high-molecular-weight polymer microfibers. By harnessing interfacial engineering-control during the polymer microspheres formation, uniformly sized microspheres could be produced with widely ranged diameters (from 10 µm to the capillary length of each polymer melt). The size limitation of this approach could be further extended by a controllable Plateau-Rayleigh instability phenomenon. Principally, the top-down approach allows fabrication of microspheres by various polymer melts with surface energy higher than 25 mN/m. Our work paves a way for green, cost-effective, and customizable production of a variety of functional polymer microspheres without any chemical reaction assistant.

在过去的几十年中，具有均匀尺寸，组成和表面性质的聚合物微球得到了广泛的研究。常规的自下而上的方法是使用单体或低聚物来构建所需的聚合物微球。然而，将高分子量聚合物直接成型为有序的聚合物微球仍然是巨大的挑战。在本文中，我们报道了一种简便而有效的自上而下的方法来制造具有高分子量聚合物微纤维的微球。通过在聚合物微球形成过程中利用界面工程控制，可以生产出直径范围宽广（从10 µm到每种聚合物熔体的毛细管长度）的大小均一的微球。这种方法的大小限制可以通过可控的高原-瑞利不稳定性现象进一步扩展。原则上，自上而下的方法允许通过表面能高于25 mN / m的各种聚合物熔体制造微球。我们的工作为无需任何化学反应助剂的各种功能性聚合物微球的绿色，经济高效且可定制的生产铺平了道路。