Effects of scattering area shape on spin conductance in a four-terminal spin-Hall setup

We study spin conductance in a ballistic and quasiballistic two-dimensional electron system with Rashba spin-orbit coupling. The system has a four-terminal geometry with round corners at the connection to the leads. It is found that by going from sharp corners to more round corners in the ballistic system the energy-depended spin conductance goes from being relatively flat to a curve showing a series of minima and maxima. It is also found that when changing the size of the terminal area by modifying the roundness of the terminal corners the maxima and minima in the transverse spin conductance are shifted in energy. This shift is due increased (decreased) energy for smaller (larger) terminal area. These results were also found to be reasonably stable in quasiballistic systems.