I will discuss a theoretical method for understanding and controlling self-assembly. The talk will be in two parts. First I will present an analytic technique for predicting pattern formation in self-assembling systems. These results will be demonstrated both on space filling patterns, especially stripes, and on aggregation. I will also briefly discuss how the method can be extended to predict pattern formation on the surface of colloidal particles. In the second part I will show an analytical approach for designing pairwise interaction potentials that lead to self-assembly of target lattice structures, for example Kagome lattices, diamond lattices and chiral lattices. These results provide a theoretical basis for prediction and control of self-assembly, which in the future may allow us to effectively design, rather than discover, novel metamaterials.
