The Ytterbium is a chemical element of Yb symbol and atomic number 70.

Ytterbium is a metal of the group of the Rare earths. Like the others lanthanides, it is gray money, malleable and ductile with the room temperature. It must be preserved safe from the air, especially wet.

Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac thought of having discovered it in 1878 in the yttrium ground. It was allowed as being a new element, but it proved in 1907 that it was in fact consisted two elements when Georges Urbain managed the first to separate oxides from ytterbium and Lutécium at the same time as Carl Auer von Welsbach.

As the majority of lanthanides it are extracted from the Monazite where one finds it in a proportion of 0,03%. Ytterbium has three allotropic forms. The temperatures of transition are -13°C and 795°C. Between these two temperatures, (form béta) it adopts a structure Cubique centered face, while at high temperature (form gamma), it becomes Cubique centered. Natural ytterbium is a mixture of 7 stable isotopes.

Uses

• Stainless steel: improvement of the properties of treatment of the stainless steel
• active Ion for crystals Laser: active ion more and more used in crystals laser such as for example Yb: YAG or Yb: Emitting KYW with approximately 1030-1070 Nm (approximately 1 micrometer) in the infra-red close relation.

Some tracks, currently in phase of research:

• activator of phosphorescent substance for the infra-red light in the form of Yb₂O₃
• Medicine: radiation source inter alia for portable radiographic apparatuses using ¹⁶⁹Yb
• Semiconductor: halide of Superconductive Yb
• : YbBa₂Cu₃O₇
• Strain gauge: would allow to measure the very strong stresses by using the variation of its conductivity.

See too

Simple: Ytterbium