How to Use ytterbium in a Sentence

ytterbium

noun
  • In these clocks, a laser is shined through a cloud of atoms — usually of strontium or ytterbium.
    — Chelsea Gohd, Discover Magazine, 7 Dec. 2018
  • Here, the quantum state is not generally stored in a single ytterbium ion.
    — Chris Lee, Ars Technica, 30 Nov. 2019
  • To solve this problem, a group of researchers used a nanoparticle that was doped with ytterbium (a rare-earth metal).
    — Chris Lee, Ars Technica, 12 Dec. 2018
  • This system uses an isotope of ytterbium for qubits and barium ions for cooling.
    — Paul Smith-Goodson, Forbes, 2 Oct. 2024
  • In the universe, every ytterbium atom is the same as every other ytterbium atom.
    — Chuck Brooks, Forbes, 22 Feb. 2025
  • In plain English, that means ytterbium has only two quantum levels that can be accessed in its lowest state.
    — Paul Smith-Goodson, Forbes, 2 Oct. 2024
  • The latest optical atomic clocks use faster atoms such as ytterbium, which tick up to 100 trillion times per second.
    — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 9 Oct. 2025
  • The IonQ processor uses powerful lasers to trap ions from a rare earth metal, ytterbium, and uses these to form its qubits.
    — Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 22 Sep. 2021
  • What’s more, the team conducted isotope shift measurements and tracked how the transition frequency changes between different forms of ytterbium atoms.
    — Georgina Jedikovska, Interesting Engineering, 4 Apr. 2026
  • Last year, researchers figured out how to create time crystals in a lab for the first time, using a complicated method involving a precision laser and a collection of ytterbium atoms.
    — Avery Thompson, Popular Mechanics, 4 May 2018
  • Those nanoparticles contain two rare-earth elements, erbium and ytterbium, which help convert the infrared light into a higher energy green light that mammal eyes can detect.
    — Courtney Linder, Popular Mechanics, 27 Aug. 2019
  • After cooling atomic clocks that trap single ions such as aluminum and ytterbium to absolute zero, the researchers manipulated their quantum states with laser pulses.
    — Ameya Paleja, Interesting Engineering, 20 Apr. 2026
  • Its newest quantum computer uses ytterbium atoms capable of scaling to upwards of 1,200 qubits.
    — Paul Smith-Goodson, Forbes, 2 Oct. 2024
  • In 2012, for example, physicists captured the first-ever view of an atomic shadow by shining a laser at a single ytterbium atom in a vacuum chamber.
    — Marisa Sloan, Discover Magazine, 30 May 2023
  • The practical choice of materials for solar cells are lanthanides like ytterbium or erbium, which have multiple energy levels for electrons to occupy.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 30 Dec. 2022
  • IonQ uses individual atoms of ytterbium and barium as qubits within an ultra-high vacuum, protecting them from the outside world.
    — Aldo Svaldi, Mercury News, 19 May 2026
  • Scalable architecture and new ion design Helios introduces a new ion-trap architecture that switches from ytterbium to barium qubits.
    — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 6 Nov. 2025
  • They were first detected in 2016 in experiments with ions of the rare-earth metal ytterbium at the University of Maryland.
    — Tom Metcalfe, NBC News, 15 July 2022
  • The company’s experiments made non-Abelian anyons out of 27 ions of the metal ytterbium, suspended in electromagnetic fields.
    — Sophia Chen, WIRED, 21 Dec. 2023
  • Physicists have developed a highly precise and ultra-sensitive atomic clock based on ytterbium, which could test the limits of the Standard Model and even search for elusive dark matter.
    — Georgina Jedikovska, Interesting Engineering, 4 Apr. 2026
  • The breakthrough was the development of solid-state lasers that use bundles of glass fibers doped with exotic elements like ytterbium, erbium, and thulium along with aluminum, germanium, and phosphorus.
    — New Atlas, 17 Jan. 2026
  • The heat-and-pull tapering procedure stretches the spacing between the individual ytterbium ions and effectively turns them into single-photon emitters.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 10 Jan. 2024
  • To create the time crystals, researchers at University of Maryland hooked together 10 ytterbium atoms and hit them with two lasers multiple times to keep them out of equilibrium.
    — Sophie Weiner, Popular Mechanics, 28 Jan. 2017
  • The University of Adelaide’s optical atomic clock is based on warm ytterbium vapor, a world-first technology now on the path toward commercialization.
    — Kapil Kajal, Interesting Engineering, 4 Nov. 2025
  • With names like europium, scandium and ytterbium, the bulk of rare earth minerals are extracted from mines in China, where lower wages and lax environmental standards make production cheaper and easier.
    — Washington Post, 8 June 2019
  • Companies must also consider whether these devices can be manufactured at scale and whether critical raw materials like helium, molybdenum and ytterbium are readily available.
    — Vibhu Sharma, Forbes.com, 19 Aug. 2025
  • The first of these clocks was developed in the early 1980s, and nowadays they can be built from any of a number of neutral or ionized versions of elements, including mercury, strontium, calcium, ytterbium, and aluminum.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 30 Sep. 2014
  • This effect was specific to the combination of scandium and the P′2 polytype; similar improvements were not observed in the P2 polytype or when doping with other metals like ytterbium and aluminum.
    — Aman Tripathi, Interesting Engineering, 17 Sep. 2025
  • Among the recovered materials, dysprosium, ytterbium, and erbium are considered high-value due to strong demand and limited substitutes, while yttrium and gadolinium are widely used in electronics, lighting, and healthcare.
    — Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 11 Feb. 2026
  • In its most recent move, China added five rare-earth elements – holmium, erbium, thulium, europium, ytterbium, and related magnets and materials – to its existing control list, requiring export licenses.
    — Ramishah Maruf, CNN Money, 11 Oct. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ytterbium.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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