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
  • With each pass, more ytterbium atoms amplify the light, building up the laser power.
    — Jeff Hecht, IEEE Spectrum, 27 Mar. 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
  • The tight connection between the inner and outer cores ensures that most of the pump light is absorbed by ytterbium atoms.
    — Jeff Hecht, IEEE Spectrum, 27 Mar. 2018
  • 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 ytterbium ions provide the optical gain needed for lasing.
    — Rupendra Brahambhatt, Interesting Engineering, 22 Aug. 2026
  • 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
  • Further measurements showed that some ytterbium ions carry magnetic moments of their own.
    — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 3 Oct. 2026
  • In a fiber laser, however, this central core contains light-emitting atoms, usually ytterbium.
    — Jeff Hecht, IEEE Spectrum, 27 Mar. 2018
  • That comparison gave the team evidence that ytterbium plays a key role in the unusual magnetic state.
    — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 3 Oct. 2026
  • 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
  • Like the signal in a telecommunication fiber, the light emitted by ytterbium atoms in a fiber laser remains confined within the light-guiding central core.
    — Jeff Hecht, IEEE Spectrum, 27 Mar. 2018
  • The team now points to interactions between manganese and ytterbium as a possible source of the unusual Hall response.
    — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 3 Oct. 2026
  • 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
  • Its compatibility with ytterbium also expands the range of ions researchers can use in monolithic three-dimensional traps.
    — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 13 Oct. 2026
  • Since the 1960s, cesium has been the element of choice, though clocks based on other metals, such as ytterbium or strontium, have been created for their own handy attributes.
    — New Atlas, 24 Sep. 2026
  • Their model links the ytterbium moments with the directionally fluctuating manganese spins.
    — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 3 Oct. 2026
  • 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
  • The device works with heavy ions such as ytterbium, addressing a limitation that restricted earlier monolithic designs.
    — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 13 Oct. 2026
  • Its newest quantum computer uses ytterbium atoms capable of scaling to upwards of 1,200 qubits.
    — Paul Smith-Goodson, Forbes, 2 Oct. 2024
  • The technique is already being tested with ytterbium-containing molecules and is expected to be applied to radium in future studies.
    — Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 17 July 2026
  • 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

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.

Last Updated: