Russia's Approach to Connectivity in Asia: From Cooperation to Coercion.

Russia's foreign policy concept, last updated in 2023, envisioned economic and political cooperation with countries of the Asia-Pacific as important for advancing Russia's agenda as a global power and emphasised the need to improve connectivity across Eurasia. This article applies a novel theoretical framework for analysing Russia's approach to connectivity in Asia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Drawing from policy documents and secondary sources, the article identifies three different geographical spaces targeted by Russian connectivity policy: East of the Russian Federation, post-Soviet Central Asia, and Greater Eurasia.

Combined NC-AFM and DFT study of the adsorption geometry of trimesic acid on rutile TiO2(110).

The adsorption behavior of trimesic acid (TMA) on rutile TiO(2)(110) is studied by means of non-contact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM) and density-functional theory (DFT). Upon low-coverage adsorption at room temperature, NC-AFM imaging reveals individual molecules, centered above the surface titanium rows. Based on the NC-AFM results alone it is difficult to deduce whether the molecules are lying flat or standing upright on the surface.

Interaction of copper organometallic precursors with barrier layers of Ti, Ta and W and their nitrides: a first-principles molecular dynamics study.

Processes for the deposition of copper films on transition metal barrier layers by means CVD using organometallic precursors are often found to lead to poor adhesion characteristics of the grown film. By means of first-principles molecular dynamics simulations, we show that the source of the problem is the strong reactivity of the surfaces toward the precursors, which decompose spontaneously upon contact with the surface leading to contamination of the interface. Our simulations consider Ti, Ta, and W as barrier layers, and Cu(hfac)-(tmvs) as precursor.

First-principles analyses and predictions on the reactivity of barrier layers of Ta and TaN toward organometallic precursors for deposition of copper films.

We present theoretical studies based on first-principles density functional theory calculations on the mechanisms of chemical vapor deposition of Cu-hexafluoracetylacetonato-trimethylvinylsilane (Cu(hfac)(tmvs)) on tantalum surfaces. This process has been used in the past to grow copper films via a disproportionation reaction and was found to exhibit adhesion problems. We show that the Ta surfaces are highly reactive and that the organic ligands in a copper precursor would undergo spontaneous decomposition upon contact with the Ta substrates.