Design Tools for Economical and Multifarious Self Assembly

Modern experimental platforms for self assembly make it possible to control particle shapes and interactions with great precision. However, exploiting this control over particles for optimal assembly remains challenging. This is particularly so for e.g. economical or multifarious self assembly, where simple design priciples, like fully-addressable assembly, are inapplicable. Here we introduce practical design tools for these systems as part of a theoretical framework for designing "semi-addressable" systems more generally. We show how thermodynamic constraints determine possible assembly outcomes, and how entropic benefits from "reusing" particle species can be exploited for efficient design. We demonstrate our approach on self assembly models inspired by DNA-Origami particles, where we show that design economy and target yield can in many cases be optimized simultaneously. Our work bridges the gap between theoretical foundations and practical design strategies, and has direct implications for a wide range of experimental self assembly systems.