Determination of the surface states from the ultrafast electronic states in a thermoelectric material

We reveal the electronic structure in YbCd₂Sb₂, a thermoelectric material, by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and time-resolved ARPES (trARPES). Specifically, three bulk bands at the vicinity of the Fermi level are evidenced near the Brillouin zone center, consistent with the density functional theory (DFT) calculation. It is interesting that the spin-unpolarized bulk bands respond unexpectedly to right- and left-handed circularly polarized probe. In addition, a hole band of surface states, which is not sensitive to the polarization of the probe beam and is not expected from the DFT calculation, is identified. We find that the non-equilibrium quasiparticle recovery rate is much smaller in the surface states than that of the bulk states. Our results demonstrate that the surface states can be distinguished from the bulk ones from a view of time scale in the nonequilibrium physics.