Ytterbium compounds

[1] Ytterbium dodecaboride (YbB12) is a crystalline material that has been studied to understand various electronic and structural properties of many chemically related substances.

[7] It is a quantum material; under normal conditions, the interior of the bulk crystal is an insulator whereas the surface is highly conductive.

[8] Among the rare earth elements, ytterbium is one of the few that can form a stable dodecaboride, a property attributed to its comparatively small atomic radius.

Just above this temperature the heat capacity is extremely high, and the electrons behave as if they were 1,000,000 times heavier than they really are.

[23] Ytterbium-bismuth-platinum is an intermetallic material which at low temperatures exhibits an extremely high value of specific heat, which is a characteristic of heavy-fermion behavior.

[25] However, subsequent measurements by other groups were not able to reproduce those results, but rather found expansion coefficients similar to copper.