• Question: what is yittrium

    Asked by brendan999 to Allan, Angela, Diva, Harriet, Nathan on 25 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Allan Pang

      Allan Pang answered on 25 Jun 2012:

      Yttrium is one of the chemical elements; and is abbreviated with a symbol Y. It is used in making fluorescent lights and cathode ray tube of TV.

      I don’t really use yttrium in my research project, so I don’t know much more about it.

    • Photo: Diva Amon

      Diva Amon answered on 25 Jun 2012:

      Further to what Allan said, Yttrium is a transition metal in group 3 – it is silvery in colour and soft. It is found in rare earth metals and never on its own as a free element in nature. In fine pieces, it can spontaneously ignite in air at temperatures exceeding 400 degC. Some yttrium compounds are considered mildly-toxic, causing lung disease in some humans.

    • Photo: Nathan Langford

      Nathan Langford answered on 25 Jun 2012:

      Yttrium is one of the elements which make up a crystal which is used in one of the most important types of lasers – the Neodymium-doped Yttrium-Aluminium-Garnet laser (Nd:YAG for short). Yttrium-Aluminium-Garnet is an artificial laser crystal. In Nd:YAG lasers, it contains impurities of Neodymium (Nd) ions, which are where the light is created inside the laser. They usually produce infrared light with a wavelength of 1064 nanometres, which is invisible, but they can be converted into green lasers (like the pictures in my profile) and also UV lasers.

      Nd:YAG lasers are used very widely in both research and industry, everywhere from medicine (e.g., laser eye surgery) to conservation (cleaning) of historic buildings and statues (e.g., currently being used to clean St Stephan’s Cathedral in Vienna), and can even be used to cut out or fade designs in your denim jeans!

    • Photo: Angela Lamb

      Angela Lamb answered on 25 Jun 2012:

      Yttrium is one of the elements I don’t work on so I don’t know much about it. I do work on elements found in biological materials such as oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and sulphur.

Comments