Erbium

Overview

Erbium is a soft, silvery heavy rare-earth metal, element 68. It was discovered in 1843 by Carl Gustav Mosander, who separated a pink oxide from yttrium, and is named after the Swedish village of Ytterby. Pure metal was first made in 1934.¹

Erbium finds little use as a metal because it slowly tarnishes in air and is attacked by water. Its value lies in its optical properties: broadband signals carried by fiber-optic cables are amplified by including erbium in the glass fiber. Erbium works at about 1.55 micrometers, a wavelength at which light travels through glass fiber with little scattering or absorption.¹

Erbium is on the US 2025 List of Critical Minerals and falls under the EU's heavy rare earths, which are listed as critical raw materials.²³

Where it comes from

Erbium occurs mainly in monazite and bastnaesite and is separated by ion exchange and solvent extraction.¹ The US government records it as a potential by-product of other rare earths, iron ore and heavy mineral sands.²

Light-rare-earth ores carry very little erbium; in the Dechang bastnaesite deposit in Sichuan it is about 0.04% of contained rare-earth oxide (REO). Ion-adsorption clays in Jiangxi province are far richer, at about 0.9% (Xunwu), 2.5% (Xinfeng) and 4.3% (Longnan).⁴ The USGS describes the South China ion-adsorption clays as supplying virtually all of the heavy rare earths reaching world markets.⁵ Similar clays in Myanmar's Kachin State have become a major source of heavy-rare-earth feed for China.⁶

The European Commission found China to be the main global processor of erbium, with 100% of supply, and the source of 100% of the EU's supply.⁷ The USGS does not publish erbium production by country. For all rare earths combined, world mine output was an estimated 390,000 t REO in 2025, of which China produced about 270,000 t.⁸ The chart covers all rare earths, not erbium alone.

• China270,000 t · 69%
• United States51,000 t · 13%
• Australia29,000 t · 7%
• Burma22,000 t · 6%
• Thailand4,800 t · 1%
• India2,900 t · <1%
• Madagascar2,700 t · <1%
• Russia2,600 t · <1%
• Other countries4,310 t · 1%

Covers all rare earths combined, in rare-earth-oxide terms; USGS does not publish erbium output by country. World total is the USGS rounded figure; country figures sum to 389,310 t. USGS estimated Burma, Thailand and Madagascar from Chinese import data. Source: Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Rare Earths

What it is used for

• Fiber optics. Erbium-doped fiber amplifies signals in fiber-optic networks.¹ The USGS lists fiber optics and industrial and medical lasers among the main uses of heavy rare earths.⁹
• Glass. Erbium oxide is used in infrared-absorbing glass, such as safety glasses for welders, and gives glass a pink tint used in some sunglasses and imitation gems.¹ The glass industry uses lanthanum, cerium and erbium, in that order of quantity.⁴ Glass was assessed as 74% of EU erbium use.⁷
• Lasers. Laser crystals are often doped with heavy rare earths, particularly dysprosium, erbium, thulium and ytterbium.⁴
• Alloys. Added to vanadium, erbium lowers hardness and improves workability.¹

Grades and forms

Erbium is traded mainly as oxide, with small volumes of metal and alloys and erbium-containing optical and laser materials further down the chain. China's October 2025 control list covered erbium metal, erbium-aluminum alloy, targets, crystal materials, optical-fiber materials, hydrogen-storage and ceramic materials, oxide and compounds.¹⁰

Trade and policy

The United States relies on imports for all of its heavy-rare-earth compounds and metals. Shipping records show that erbium compounds and metals imported in 2021–24 came from Germany (51%), China (40%) and the Netherlands (9%); the material from Germany and the Netherlands was derived from concentrates and intermediates produced elsewhere.⁹

The suspension took effect on 7 November 2025, the day before Announcement No. 57 was due to start, so its erbium controls have not been applied; the suspension runs until 10 November 2026.¹⁰¹¹ The April 2025 controls on seven other rare earths were not suspended.⁸

This section is factual background, not legal or trade-compliance advice.

Recycling and substitution

Only small quantities of heavy rare earths are recovered, mainly from permanent magnets.⁹ Substitutes for heavy rare earths are available for some applications but are generally less effective; light rare earths can substitute for heavy rare earths in several applications.⁹

Sources

1. Erbium: element information, properties and uses. Royal Society of Chemistry, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

2. Final 2025 List of Critical Minerals. Federal Register, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩²

3. Regulation (EU) 2024/1252 (Critical Raw Materials Act). EUR-Lex, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩

4. 2020 Minerals Yearbook: Rare Earths. U.S. Geological Survey, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. Rare Earth Element Accumulation Processes Resulting in High-Value Metal Enrichments in Regolith. U.S. Geological Survey, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩

6. Myanmar: the soft underbelly of China's rare earth dominance. Asialink, University of Melbourne, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩

7. Study on the Critical Raw Materials for the EU 2023: Final Report. European Commission, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩²

8. Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Rare Earths. U.S. Geological Survey, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩²

9. Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Rare Earths (Heavy). U.S. Geological Survey, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

10. Announcement No. 57 of 2025 on implementing export control on some medium and heavy rare earth related items (in Chinese). Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩² ↩³

11. Announcement No. 70 of 2025 suspending Announcements No. 55–58, 61 and 62 of 2025 (in Chinese). Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩²