Analog computing using graphene-based metalines.

We introduce the new concept of "metalines" for manipulating the amplitude and phase profile of an incident wave locally and independently. Thanks to the highly confined graphene plasmons, a transmit-array of graphene-based metalines is used to realize analog computing on an ultra-compact, integrable, and planar platform. By employing the general concepts of spatial Fourier transformation, a well-designed structure of such meta-transmit-array, combined with graded index (GRIN) lenses, can perform two mathematical operations, i.e., differentiation and integration, with high efficiency. The presented configuration is about 60 times shorter than the recent structure proposed by Silva et al. [Science343, 160 (2014)SCIEAS0036-807510.1126/science.1242818]; moreover, our simulated output responses are in better agreement with the desired analytical results. These findings may lead to remarkable achievements in light-based plasmonic signal processors at nanoscale, instead of their bulky conventional dielectric lens-based counterparts.