Y

Yttrium
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Yttrium is a chemical element with the symbol Y and atomic number 39. It is a silvery-metallic transition metal chemically similar to
the lanthanides and has often been classified as a "rare-earth element".[5] Yttrium is almost always found in combination with
lanthanide elements in rare-earth minerals, and is never found in nature as a free element. 89Y is the only stable isotope, and the
only isotope found in the Earth's crust.
Uses
The most important uses of yttrium are LEDs and phosphors, particularly the red
phosphors in television set cathode ray tube displays. Yttrium is also used in the
production of electrodes, electrolytes, electronic filters, lasers, superconductors,
various medical applications, and tracing various materials to enhance their
properties.
History
In 1787, part-time chemist Carl Axel Arrhenius found a heavy black rock in an old quarry near the Swedish village of Ytterby (now part of the
Stockholm Archipelago). Thinking it was an unknown mineral containing the newly discovered element tungsten,he named it ytterbite[d] and
sent samples to various chemists for analysis.

Johan Gadolin at the University of Åbo identified a new oxide (or "earth") in Arrhenius' sample in 1789, and published his completed analysis
in 1794.[31][e] Anders Gustaf Ekeberg confirmed the identification in 1797 and named the new oxide yttria.[32] In the decades after Antoine
Lavoisier developed the first modern definition of chemical elements, it was believed that earths could be reduced to their elements, meaning
that the discovery of a new earth was equivalent to the discovery of the element within, which in this case would have been yttrium.