Discovery of erbium

Erbium was discovered in 1843 by the Swedish chemist Carl Gustaf Mosander in Stockholm, who separated it from the mineral yttria, in which he found two further oxides, erbia and terbia. It is named, like yttrium, ytterbium and terbium, after Ytterby, the Swedish village near where the mineral was found. Erbium is a silvery rare earth metal whose compounds are pink. Its main use is in optical communications, where erbium-doped fibre amplifiers boost the light signals travelling through long-distance glass fibre cables, which made the modern internet possible. It is also used to tint glass pink, as a laser material in some medical and dental procedures and in nuclear control materials.

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