Holmium's founding is quite confusing- it was first found in 1878 in France by Jacques-Louis Soret and Marc Delfontaine, but it was also found independently in 1879 in Sweden by Per Teodor Cleve. Despite being found in France earlier, holmium was named for Stockholm, Sweden. It is currently priced at $10 a gram. While it is a very soft metal, it resists corrosion very well and also has the highest magnetic moment.Like most other lanthanides, it is not found free in nature but instead found in monazite and gadolinite. It CAN be commercially extracted from monazite sand, but it is very difficult to separate from rare earth elements and is not typically done. It stays stable in dry air at room temperature, but will oxidize in moisture or at high temperatures. Holmium is typically used in:
- Magnetic poles
- Nuclear control rods
- Solid state lasers
- Microwaves
- Coloring glass yellow
- Spectrophotometers
- Cubic zirconia
- Medically reduction of kidney stones
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