Ytterbium

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Not to be confused with yttrium.
Ytterbium, 70Yb
Ytterbium
Pronunciation/ɪˈtɜːrbiəm/ ​(ih-TUR-bee-əm)
Appearancesilvery white; with a pale yellow tint[1]
Standard atomic weight Ar°(Yb)
Ytterbium in the periodic table
Hydrogen Helium
Lithium Beryllium Boron Carbon Nitrogen Oxygen Fluorine Neon
Sodium Magnesium Aluminium Silicon Phosphorus Sulfur Chlorine Argon
Potassium Calcium Scandium Titanium Vanadium Chromium Manganese Iron Cobalt Nickel Copper Zinc Gallium Germanium Arsenic Selenium Bromine Krypton
Rubidium Strontium Yttrium Zirconium Niobium Molybdenum Technetium Ruthenium Rhodium Palladium Silver Cadmium Indium Tin Antimony Tellurium Iodine Xenon
Caesium Barium Lanthanum Cerium Praseodymium Neodymium Promethium Samarium Europium Gadolinium Terbium Dysprosium Holmium Erbium Thulium Ytterbium Lutetium Hafnium Tantalum Tungsten Rhenium Osmium Iridium Platinum Gold Mercury (element) Thallium Lead Bismuth Polonium Astatine Radon
Francium Radium Actinium Thorium Protactinium Uranium Neptunium Plutonium Americium Curium Berkelium Californium Einsteinium Fermium Mendelevium Nobelium Lawrencium Rutherfordium Dubnium Seaborgium Bohrium Hassium Meitnerium Darmstadtium Roentgenium Copernicium Nihonium Flerovium Moscovium Livermorium Tennessine Oganesson
–
↑
Yb
↓
No
thulium ← ytterbium → lutetium
kJ/mol
Heat of vaporization129 kJ/mol
Molar heat capacity26.74 J/(mol·K)
Vapor pressure
P (Pa) 1 10 100 1 k 10 k 100 k
at T (K) 736 813 910 1047 (1266) (1465)
Atomic properties
Discovery
Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac (1878)
First isolationCarl Auer von Welsbach (1906)
Isotopes of ytterbium
Main isotopes[8] Decay
abun­dance half-life (t1/2) mode pro­duct
166Yb synth 56.7 h ε
166Tm
168Yb 0.126%
stable
169Yb synth 32.026 d ε
169Tm
170Yb 3.02% stable
171Yb 14.2% stable
172Yb 21.8% stable
173Yb 16.1% stable
174Yb 31.9% stable
175Yb synth 4.185 d
β−
175Lu
176Yb 12.9% stable
177Yb synth 1.911 h β−
177Lu
 Category: Ytterbium
| references

Ytterbium is a

symbol Yb and atomic number 70. It is a metal, the fourteenth and penultimate element in the lanthanide series, which is the basis of the relative stability of its +2 oxidation state. Like the other lanthanides, its most common oxidation state is +3, as in its oxide, halides, and other compounds. In aqueous solution
, like compounds of other late lanthanides, soluble ytterbium compounds form complexes with nine water molecules. Because of its closed-shell electron configuration, its density, melting point and boiling point are much lower than those of most other lanthanides.

In 1878, Swiss chemist

ytterbia", for Ytterby, the village in Sweden near where he found the new component of erbium. He suspected that ytterbia was a compound of a new element that he called "ytterbium" (in total, four elements were named after the village, the others being yttrium, terbium, and erbium). In 1907, the new earth "lutecia" was separated from ytterbia, from which the element "lutecium" (now lutetium) was extracted by Georges Urbain, Carl Auer von Welsbach, and Charles James. After some discussion, Marignac's name "ytterbium" was retained. A relatively pure sample of the metal was not obtained until 1953. At present, ytterbium is mainly used as a dopant of stainless steel or active laser media, and less often as a gamma ray
source.

Natural ytterbium is a mixture of seven stable isotopes, which altogether are present at concentrations of 0.3

rare-earth elements
; moreover, it is among the least abundant. Once extracted and prepared, ytterbium is somewhat hazardous as an eye and skin irritant. The metal is a fire and explosion hazard.

Characteristics

Physical properties

Ytterbium is a soft,

malleable and ductile chemical element. In color when freshly prepared, it is less golden than cesium, but, more golden in color than just a "yellow-cast" as in metals like iridium. It is a rare-earth element, and it is readily dissolved by the strong mineral acids. [9]

Ytterbium has three

resistivity increases ten times upon compression to 39,000 atmospheres (3.9 GPa), but then drops to about 10% of its room-temperature resistivity at about 40,000 atm (4.0 GPa).[9][12]

In contrast with the other rare-earth metals, which usually have

diamagnetic.[10] With a melting point of 824 °C and a boiling point of 1196 °C, ytterbium has the smallest liquid range of all the metals.[9]

Contrary to most other lanthanides, which have a close-packed hexagonal lattice, ytterbium crystallizes in the face-centered cubic system. Ytterbium has a density of 6.973 g/cm3, which is significantly lower than those of the neighboring lanthanides,

metallic radius.[11]

Chemical properties

Ytterbium metal tarnishes slowly in air, taking on a golden or brown hue. Finely dispersed ytterbium readily oxidizes in air and under oxygen. Mixtures of powdered ytterbium with polytetrafluoroethylene or hexachloroethane burn with a luminous emerald-green flame.[14] Ytterbium reacts with hydrogen to form various non-stoichiometric hydrides. Ytterbium dissolves slowly in water, but quickly in acids, liberating hydrogen gas.[11]

Ytterbium is quite

electropositive, and it reacts slowly with cold water and quite quickly with hot water to form ytterbium(III) hydroxide:[15]

2 Yb (s) + 6 H2O (l) → 2 Yb(OH)3 (aq) + 3 H2 (g)

Ytterbium reacts with all the halogens:[15]

2 Yb (s) + 3 F2 (g) → 2 YbF3 (s) [white]
2 Yb (s) + 3 Cl2 (g) → 2 YbCl3 (s) [white]
2 Yb (s) + 3 Br2 (l) → 2 YbBr3 (s) [white]
2 Yb (s) + 3 I2 (s) → 2 YbI3 (s) [white]

The ytterbium(III) ion absorbs light in the

ytterbia, Yb2O3, is white in color and the salts of ytterbium are also colorless. Ytterbium dissolves readily in dilute sulfuric acid to form solutions that contain the colorless Yb(III) ions, which exist as nonahydrate complexes:[15]

2 Yb (s) + 3 H2SO4 (aq) + 18 H
2O (l) → 2 [Yb(H2O)9]3+ (aq) + 3 SO2−
4 (aq) + 3 H2 (g)

Yb(II) vs. Yb(III)

Although usually trivalent, ytterbium readily forms divalent compounds. This behavior is unusual for lanthanides, which almost exclusively form compounds with an oxidation state of +3. The +2 state has a valence electron configuration of 4f14 because the fully filled f-shell gives more stability. The yellow-green ytterbium(II) ion is a very strong reducing agent and decomposes water, releasing hydrogen gas, and thus only the colorless ytterbium(III) ion occurs in aqueous solution. Samarium and thulium also behave this way in the +2 state, but europium(II) is stable in aqueous solution. Ytterbium metal behaves similarly to europium metal and the alkaline earth metals, dissolving in ammonia to form blue electride salts.[11]

Isotopes

Main article: Isotopes of ytterbium

Natural ytterbium is composed of seven stable

meta states, with the most stable being 169mYb (t1/2 46 seconds).[16][8]

The isotopes of ytterbium range from 149Yb to 187Yb.

decay mode of ytterbium isotopes lighter than the most abundant stable isotope, 174Yb, is electron capture, and the primary decay mode for those heavier than 174Yb is beta decay. The primary decay products of ytterbium isotopes lighter than 174Yb are thulium isotopes, and the primary decay products of ytterbium isotopes with heavier than 174Yb are lutetium isotopes.[16][8]

Occurrence

Euxenite

Ytterbium is found with other

solvent extraction techniques developed in the mid- to late 20th century have simplified separation. Compounds of ytterbium are rare and have not yet been well characterized. The abundance of ytterbium in the Earth's crust is about 3 mg/kg.[12]

As an even-numbered lanthanide, in accordance with the

Oddo-Harkins rule, ytterbium is significantly more abundant than its immediate neighbors, thulium and lutetium, which occur in the same concentrate at levels of about 0.5% each. The world production of ytterbium is only about 50 tonnes per year, reflecting that it has few commercial applications.[12] Microscopic traces of ytterbium are used as a dopant in the Yb:YAG laser, a solid-state laser in which ytterbium is the element that undergoes stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation.[18]

Ytterbium is often the most common substitute in yttrium minerals. In very few known cases/occurrences ytterbium prevails over yttrium, as, e.g., in xenotime-(Yb). A report of native ytterbium from the Moon's regolith is known.[19]

Production

It is relatively difficult to separate ytterbium from other lanthanides due to its similar properties. As a result, the process is somewhat long. First, minerals such as

complexing agents, and due to the different types of bonding exhibited by the different lanthanides, it is possible to isolate the compounds.[20][21]

Ytterbium is separated from other rare earths either by ion exchange or by reduction with sodium amalgam. In the latter method, a buffered acidic solution of trivalent rare earths is treated with molten sodium-mercury alloy, which reduces and dissolves Yb3+. The alloy is treated with hydrochloric acid. The metal is extracted from the solution as oxalate and converted to oxide by heating. The oxide is reduced to metal by heating with lanthanum, aluminium, cerium or zirconium in high vacuum. The metal is purified by sublimation and collected over a condensed plate.[22]

Compounds

Ytterbium(III) oxide
See also: Category:Ytterbium compounds

The chemical behavior of ytterbium is similar to that of the rest of the lanthanides. Most ytterbium compounds are found in the +3 oxidation state, and its salts in this oxidation state are nearly colorless. Like europium, samarium, and thulium, the trihalides of ytterbium can be reduced to the dihalides by hydrogen, zinc dust, or by the addition of metallic ytterbium.[11] The +2 oxidation state occurs only in solid compounds and reacts in some ways similarly to the alkaline earth metal compounds; for example, ytterbium(II) oxide (YbO) shows the same structure as calcium oxide (CaO).[11]

Halides

Crystal structure of ytterbium(III) oxide

Ytterbium forms both dihalides and trihalides with the halogens fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine. The dihalides are susceptible to oxidation to the trihalides at room temperature and disproportionate to the trihalides and metallic ytterbium at high temperature:[11]

3 YbX2 → 2 YbX3 + Yb (X = F, Cl, Br, I)

Some ytterbium halides are used as

X-ray contrast agent.[26]

Oxides

Ytterbium reacts with oxygen to form ytterbium(III) oxide (Yb2O3), which crystallizes in the "rare-earth C-type sesquioxide" structure which is related to the fluorite structure with one quarter of the anions removed, leading to ytterbium atoms in two different six coordinate (non-octahedral) environments.[27] Ytterbium(III) oxide can be reduced to ytterbium(II) oxide (YbO) with elemental ytterbium, which crystallizes in the same structure as sodium chloride.[11]

Borides

Ytterbium dodecaboride (YbB12) is a crystalline material that has been studied to understand various electronic and structural properties of many chemically related substances. It is a

rare earth elements, ytterbium is one of the few that can form a stable dodecaboride, a property attributed to its comparatively small atomic radius.[30]

History

Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac

Ytterbium was

erbia, and he named it ytterbia, for Ytterby, the Swedish village near where he found the new component of erbium. Marignac suspected that ytterbia was a compound of a new element that he called "ytterbium".[12][26][31][32][33]

In 1907, the French chemist Georges Urbain separated Marignac's ytterbia into two components: neoytterbia and lutecia. Neoytterbia later became known as the element ytterbium, and lutecia became known as the element lutetium. The Austrian chemist Carl Auer von Welsbach independently isolated these elements from ytterbia at about the same time, but he called them aldebaranium and cassiopeium;[12] the American chemist Charles James also independently isolated these elements at about the same time.[34] Urbain and Welsbach accused each other of publishing results based on the other party.[35][36][37] The Commission on Atomic Mass, consisting of Frank Wigglesworth Clarke, Wilhelm Ostwald, and Georges Urbain, which was then responsible for the attribution of new element names, settled the dispute in 1909 by granting priority to Urbain and adopting his names as official ones, based on the fact that the separation of lutetium from Marignac's ytterbium was first described by Urbain.[35] After Urbain's names were recognized, neoytterbium was reverted to ytterbium.

The chemical and physical properties of ytterbium could not be determined with any precision until 1953, when the first nearly pure ytterbium metal was produced by using

ion-exchange processes.[12] The price of ytterbium was relatively stable between 1953 and 1998 at about US$1,000/kg.[38]

Applications

Source of gamma rays

The 169Yb

gamma rays emitted by the source pass through soft tissues of the body, but are blocked by bones and other dense materials. Thus, small 169Yb samples (which emit gamma rays) act like tiny X-ray machines useful for radiography of small objects. Experiments show that radiographs taken with a 169Yb source are roughly equivalent to those taken with X-rays having energies between 250 and 350 keV. 169Yb is also used in nuclear medicine.[39]

High-stability atomic clocks

In 2013, ytterbium clocks held the record for stability with ticks stable to within less than two parts in 1 quintillion (2×10−18).[40] These clocks developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) rely on about 10,000 ytterbium atoms laser-cooled to 10 microkelvin (10 millionths of a degree above absolute zero) and trapped in an optical lattice—a series of pancake-shaped wells made of laser light. Another laser that "ticks" 518 trillion times per second (518 THz) provokes a transition between two energy levels in the atoms. The large number of atoms is key to the clocks' high stability.

Visible light waves oscillate faster than microwaves, hence optical clocks can be more precise than

atomic clocks. The Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt is working on several such optical clocks. The model with one single ytterbium ion caught in an ion trap is highly accurate. The optical clock based on it is exact to 17 digits after the decimal point.[41]

A pair of experimental atomic clocks based on ytterbium atoms at the National Institute of Standards and Technology has set a record for stability. NIST physicists reported in the August 22, 2013 issue of Science Express that the ytterbium clocks' ticks are stable to within less than two parts in 1

quintillion (1 followed by 18 zeros), roughly 10 times better than the previous best published results for other atomic clocks. The clocks would be accurate within a second for a period comparable to the age of the universe.[42]

Doping of stainless steel

Ytterbium can also be used as a dopant to help improve the grain refinement, strength, and other mechanical properties of stainless steel. Some ytterbium alloys have rarely been used in dentistry.[9][12]

Ytterbium as dopant of active media

The Yb3+

power scaling.[44]

The kinetic of excitations in ytterbium-doped materials is simple and can be described within the concept of

composite materials was under discussion.[48][49]

Usually, low concentrations of ytterbium are used. At high concentrations, the ytterbium-doped materials show photodarkening[50] (glass fibers) or even a switch to broadband emission[51] (crystals and ceramics) instead of efficient laser action. This effect may be related with not only overheating, but also with conditions of charge compensation at high concentrations of ytterbium ions.[52]

Much progress has been made in the power scaling lasers and amplifiers produced with ytterbium (Yb) doped optical fibers. Power levels have increased from the 1 kW regimes due to the advancements in components as well as the Yb-doped fibers. Fabrication of Low NA, Large Mode Area fibers enable achievement of near perfect beam qualities (M2<1.1) at power levels of 1.5 kW to greater than 2 kW at ~1064 nm in a broadband configuration.[53] Ytterbium-doped LMA fibers also have the advantages of a larger mode field diameter, which negates the impacts of nonlinear effects such as stimulated Brillouin scattering and stimulated Raman scattering, which limit the achievement of higher power levels, and provide a distinct advantage over single mode ytterbium-doped fibers.

To achieve even higher power levels in ytterbium-based fiber systems, all factors of the fiber must be considered. These can be achieved only through optimization of all ytterbium fiber parameters, ranging from the core background losses to the geometrical properties, to reduce the splice losses within the cavity. Power scaling also requires optimization of matching passive fibers within the optical cavity.[54] The optimization of the ytterbium-doped glass itself through host glass modification of various dopants also plays a large part in reducing the background loss of the glass, improvements in slope efficiency of the fiber, and improved photodarkening performance, all of which contribute to increased power levels in 1 µm systems.

Ion qubits for quantum computing

The charged ion 171Yb+ is used by multiple academic groups and companies as the trapped-ion qubit for

mode-locked pulse lasers.[58]

Others

Ytterbium metal increases its electrical resistivity when subjected to high stresses. This property is used in stress gauges to monitor ground deformations from earthquakes and explosions.[59]

Currently, ytterbium is being investigated as a possible replacement for magnesium in high density pyrotechnic payloads for kinematic infrared decoy flares. As ytterbium(III) oxide has a significantly higher emissivity in the infrared range than magnesium oxide, a higher radiant intensity is obtained with ytterbium-based payloads in comparison to those commonly based on magnesium/Teflon/Viton (MTV).[60]

Precautions

Although ytterbium is fairly stable chemically, it is stored in airtight containers and in an inert atmosphere such as a nitrogen-filled dry box to protect it from air and moisture.

teratogenic.[62] Metallic ytterbium dust can spontaneously combust,[63] and the resulting fumes are hazardous. Ytterbium fires cannot be extinguished using water, and only dry chemical class D fire extinguishers can extinguish the fires.[64]

References

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Further reading

  • Guide to the Elements – Revised Edition, Albert Stwertka, (Oxford University Press; 1998)
    ISBN 0-19-508083-1

External links

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