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\section{Topological Insulators}  Although RTD's have been extensively tested and studied for more than twenty years, the field of topological insulators has only come into focus in the past five years. Without going into excessive detail, a topological insulator is a material that can exhibit a unique quantum state of matter. This is known as the \textit{quantum spin hall}(QSH) state and leads to numerous unique material and transport properties. Matter in this state is insulating in the bulk region, but has conducting edge states\cite{Hasan_2010}\textsuperscript{,}\cite{Qi_2011}. states, which can be seen in figure 2a\cite{Hasan_2010}\textsuperscript{,}\cite{Qi_2011}.  Moreover, these conduction edge states are spin polarized and propagate in opposite directions. This As shown in figure 2b, this  state of matter has been experimentally observed in HgTe/CdTe quantum wells\cite{Konig_2007}\textsuperscript{,}\cite{Roth_2009}. Unlike the quantum hall state, a magnetic field is not required to change to the QSH phase. Also, these states are topologically protected against scattering. These properties give topological insulators the potential to be extremely useful in devices that would require spin control and low energy dissipation\cite{Konig_2007}.