Oscillatory structure of confined fluids

The confinement of fluids in pores and wedges is associated with exponentially damped oscillatory packing structure, as observed with the surface forces apparatus. This paper reviews the statistical mechanics of confined fluids and then illustrates the results with density functional data for hard-sphere solvent. The free energy of the pore fluid and its functional derivatives with respect to thermodynamic fields all oscillate, as a function of pore width, with a wavelength close to the solvent diameter. In contrast, the density at the centre of pores oscillates with twice this wavelength, as a function of pore width. The development of a unified physics of confined fluids is considered. Approximations based on one-dimensional physics do extraordinarily well in planar symmetry at three-dimensions.