Polymeric contributions to entropic surface forces

Density functional theory is applied to hard site chains between hard walls . The wall separation is varied and the normal pressures, surface excesses, and surface tensions are recorded. At low bulk density, a density depletio n near the wall dominates the thermodynamic behavior. At high bulk density, the thermodynamic properties develop a damped oscillatory behavior with a period of approximately one site diameter and a range of roughly six site d iameters. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.