Size-separable tile self-assembly: a tight bound for temperature-1 mismatch-free systems.

We introduce a new property of tile self-assembly systems that we call size-separability. A system is size-separable if every terminal assembly is a constant factor larger than any intermediate assembly. Size-separability is motivated by the practical problem of filtering completed assemblies from a variety of incomplete 'garbage' assemblies using gel electrophoresis or other mass-based filtering techniques. Here we prove that any system without cooperative bonding assembling a unique mismatch-free terminal assembly can be used to construct a size-separable system uniquely assembling the same shape. The proof achieves optimal scale factor, temperature, and tile types (within a factor of 2) for the size-separable system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]