 In 1878 , the Swiss chemist Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac separated in the rare earth " erbia " another independent component , which he called " ytterbia " , for Ytterby , the village in Sweden near where he found the new component of erbium . He suspected that ytterbia was a compound of a new element that he called " ytterbium " ( in total , four elements were named after the village , the others being yttrium , terbium and erbium ) . In 1907 , the new earth " lutecia " was separated from ytterbia , from which the element " lutecium " ( now lutetium ) was extracted by Georges Urbain , Carl Auer von Welsbach , and Charles James . After some discussion , Marignac 's name " ytterbium " was retained . A relatively pure sample of the metal was obtained only in 1953 . At present , ytterbium is mainly used as a dopant of stainless steel or active laser media , and less often as a gamma ray source . 
