Complexities for the Design of Self-Assembly Systems

Self-assembly is the ubiquitous process by which objects autonomously assemble into complexes. It is believed that self-assembly technology will ultimately permit the precise fabrication of complex nanostructures. Of particular interest are self-assembly systems that are highly programmable. That is, we can view a self-assembly system as analogous to a program, the process of self-assembly as computation, and the resultant structure or shape assembled as the output. In this context, we are interested in the design of compact systems for the efficient assembly of desired target structures.

In this talk I will discuss my work in the area of self-assembly, focusing primarily on DNA self-assembly and the tile assembly model framework. I will introduce new models of self-assembly and discuss how these models affect the power of assembly as well as the complexity of fundamental problems related to system design. In particular, I will discuss a new programming paradigm called Temperature Programming in which generic, multi-purpose particle systems can be dynamically programmed to assemble any of a large class of target structures as a function of a short sequence of temperature changes.