Reducing Tile Complexity for Self-Assembly Through Temperature Programming

We consider the tile self-assembly model and how tile complexity can be eliminated by permitting the temperature of the self-assembly system to be adjusted throughout the assembly process. To do this, we propose novel techniques for designing tile sets that permit an arbitrary length m binary number to be encoded into a sequence of O(m) temperature changes such that the tile set uniquely assembles a supertile that precisely encodes the corresponding binary number. As an application, we show how this provides a general tile set of size O(1) that is capable of uniquely assembling essentially any n

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2006
• Where: CORR
• Authors: Ming-Yang Kao, Robert T. Schweller
• Keywords: CORR 2006, Education, Tile, Tile Complexity, Tile Self-assembly Model