Rare earth element | Ytterbium (Yb)

In 1878, Jean Charles and G.de Marignac discovered a new rare earth element in “erbium”, named Ytterbium by Ytterby.

The main uses of ytterbium are as follows:

(1) Used as a thermal shielding coating material. Ytterbium can significantly improve the corrosion resistance of electrodeposited zinc layers, and the grain size of Ytterbium containing coatings is smaller, uniform, and dense than that of non Ytterbium containing coatings.

(2) Make magnetostrictive materials. This material has the property of giant magnetostriction, which means it expands in a magnetic field. This alloy is mainly composed of ytterbium/ferrite alloy and dysprosium/ferrite alloy, with a certain proportion of manganese added to produce giant magnetostriction.

(3) The ytterbium element used for measuring pressure has been experimentally proven to have high sensitivity within the calibrated pressure range, opening up a new path for the application of ytterbium in pressure measurement.

(4) Molar cavity resin based filler to replace the past commonly used silver amalgam.

(5) Japanese scholars have successfully completed the preparation of ytterbium doped gadolinium gallium garnet buried line waveguide lasers, which is of great significance for the further development of laser technology. In addition, ytterbium is also used for phosphor activation

Agent, radio ceramics, electronic computer memory element (magnetic bubble) additive, glass fiber flux and optical glass additive, etc.