Geometry-based density functional theory: an overview

An overview of recent developments and applications of a specific density functional approach that originates from Rosenfeld's fundamental measure theory for hard spheres is given. Model systems that were treated include penetrable spheres that interact with a step function pair potential, the Widom-Rowlinson model, the Asakura-Oosawa colloid-polymer mixture, ternary mixtures of spheres, needles, and globular polymers, hard-body amphiphilic mixtures, fluids in porous media, and random sequential adsorption that describes non-equilibrium processes such as colloidal deposition and random car parking. In these systems various physical phenomena were studied, such as correlations in liquids, freezing and demixing phase behaviour, the properties of fluid interfaces with and without orientational order, and wetting and layering phenomena at walls