Molecular electronic junctions can be made by covalently bonding aromatic molecules and graphene ribbons to a flat, sp² hybridized carbon electrode followed by a “top contact” of electron-beam deposited carbon. The entire active region of the structure consists of carbon and hydrogen, and electronic properties range from insulators to efficient conductors, with excellent lifetime and tolerance to temperature excursions. ^1-3 Of particular interest is a carbon/graphene/carbon device containing 5-carbon wide graphene ribbons, which avoids torsional disorder common to aromatic molecular components (shown schematically below, left). The graphene devices have the highest molecular conductance reported to date for large-area molecular junctions, and is stable for at least five million current/voltage cycles to ±4 A/cm². ⁴ An application of all-carbon molecular tunnel junctions in electronic music will be described, which resulted in the first known commercial product involving molecular electronics (below, right). ⁵

(1) Morteza Najarian, A.; Bayat, A.; McCreery, R. L.; Orbital Control of Photocurrents in Large Area All-Carbon Molecular Junctions; Journal of the American Chemical Society 2018, 140, 1900.

(2) Supur, M.; Smith, S. R.; McCreery, R. L.; Characterization of Growth Patterns of Nanoscale Organic Films on Carbon Electrodes by Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy; Analytical Chemistry 2017, 89, 6463.

(3) Morteza Najarian, A.; McCreery, R. L.; Structure Controlled Long-Range Sequential Tunneling in Carbon-Based Molecular Junctions; ACS Nano 2017, 11, 3542.

(4) Supur, M.; Van Dyck, C.; Bergren, A. J.; McCreery, R. L.; Bottom-up, Robust Graphene Ribbon Electronics in All-Carbon Molecular Junctions; ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 2018, 10, 6090.

(5) Bergren, A. J.; Zeer-Wanklyn, L.; Semple, M.; Pekas, N.; Szeto, B.; McCreery, R. L.; Musical molecules: the molecular junction as an active component in audio distortion circuits; Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter 2016, 28, 094011.