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Applications

Dysprosium is used, in conjunction with vanadium and other elements, in making laser materials and commercial lighting. Because of dysprosium's high thermal-neutron absorption cross-section, dysprosium-oxide–nickel cermets are used in neutron-absorbing control rods in nuclear reactors. Dysprosium– cadmium chalcogenides are sources of infrared radiation, which is useful for studying chemical reactions. Because dysprosium and its compounds are highly susceptible to magnetization, they are employed in various data-storage applications, such as in hard disks. Dysprosium is increasingly in demand for the permanent magnets used in electric-car motors and wind-turbine generators.

Neodymium –iron–boron magnets can have up to 6% of the neodymium substituted by dysprosium to raise the coercivity for demanding applications, such as drive motors for electric vehicles and generators for wind turbines. This substitution would require up to 100 grams of dysprosium per electric car produced. Based on Toyota 's projected 2 million units per year, the use of dysprosium in applications such as this would quickly exhaust its available supply. The dysprosium substitution may also be useful in other applications because it improves the corrosion resistance of the magnets.

Dysprosium is one of the components of Terfenol-D, along with iron and terbium. Terfenol-D has the highest room-temperature magnetostriction of any known material, which is employed in transducers, wide-band mechanical resonators, and high-precision liquid-fuel injectors.

Dysprosium is used in dosimeters for measuring ionizing radiation. Crystals of calcium sulfate or calcium fluoride are doped with dysprosium. When these crystals are exposed to radiation, the dysprosium atoms become excited and luminescent. The luminescence can be measured to determine the degree of exposure to which the dosimeter has been subjected.

Nanofibers of dysprosium compounds have high strength and a large surface area. Therefore, they can be used to reinforce other materials and act as a catalyst. Fibers of dysprosium oxide fluoride can be produced by heating an aqueous solution of DyBr and NaF to 450 °C at 450 bars for 17 hours. This material is remarkably robust, surviving over 100 hours in various aqueous solutions at temperatures exceeding 400 °C without redissolving or aggregating. Additionally, dysprosium has been used to create a two dimensional supersolid in a laboratory environment. Supersolids are expected to exhibit unusual properties, including superfluidity.

Dysprosium iodide and dysprosium bromide are used in high-intensity metal-halide lamps. These compounds dissociate near the hot center of the lamp, releasing isolated dysprosium atoms. The latter re-emit light in the green and red part of the spectrum, thereby effectively producing bright light.

Several paramagnetic crystal salts of dysprosium (dysprosium gallium garnet, DGG; dysprosium aluminium garnet, DAG; dysprosium iron garnet, DyIG) are used in adiabatic demagnetization refrigerators.

The trivalent dysprosium ion (Dy) has been studied due to its downshifting luminescence properties. Dy-doped yttrium aluminium garnet (Dy:YAG) excited in the ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum results in the emission of photons of longer wavelength in the visible region. This idea is the basis for a new generation of UV-pumped white light-emitting diodes.

The stable isotopes of dysprosium have been laser cooled and confined in magneto-optical traps for quantum physics experiments. The first Bose and Fermi quantum degenerate gases of an open shell lanthanide were created with dysprosium. Because dysprosium is highly magnetic—indeed it is the most magnetic fermionic element and nearly tied with terbium for most magnetic bosonic atom —such gases serve as the basis for quantum simulation with strongly dipolar atoms.

Due to its strong magnetic properties, Dysprosium alloys are used in the marine industry's sound navigation and ranging (SONAR) system. The inclusion of dysprosium alloys in the design of SONAR transducers and receivers can improve sensitivity and accuracy by providing more stable and efficient magnetic fields.