  We have identified the ground state configurations of soft particles
(interacting via inverse power potentials) confined between two hard,
impenetrable walls. To this end we have used a highly reliable optimization
scheme at {\it vanishing} temperature while varying the wall separation over a
representative range. Apart from the expected layered triangular and square
structures (which are compatible with the three dimensional bulk fcc lattice),
we have identified a cascade of highly complex intermediate structures. Taking
benefit of the general scaling properties of inverse power potentials, we could
identify -- for a given softness value -- one single master curve which relates
the energy to the wall separation, irrespective of the density of the system.
Via extensive Monte Carlo simulations, we have performed closer investigations
of these intermediate structures at {\it finite} temperature: we could provide
evidence to which extent these particle arrangements remain stable over a
relatively large temperature range.
