What does EU stand for?

Typically europium salts, terbium salts, and samarium salts, when associated with suitable organic ligands, can absorb light energy and transfer it to the central metal atom to give narrow emission bands in the visible region, usually described as an "antenna effect" (1), (2).

This phenomenon most recently made news with the soaring costs of compact fluorescent light bulbs--up 37 percent in price so far this year, according to The New York Times--which depend on the rare earth metal europium.

That group also includes the historically rare and very expensive to extract elements Europium (Eu) and Glorium (Gm) and the universally present Gazettium (Gz).

The rare earth sector covers companies with operations involving exploration, extraction, transport, processing or any other business involving any of the following 17 rare earth elements: Scandium, Yttrium, Lanthanum, Lutetium, Ytterbium, Thulium, Erbium, Holmium, Dysprosium, Terbium, Gadolinium, Europium, Samarium, Promethium, Neodymium, Praseodymium, and Cerium.

Mud at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean contains surprising levels of rare earth elements, 17 chemicals with exotic names like neodymium and europium that are crucial to technologies ranging from cell phones and televisions to fluorescent lightbulbs and wind turbines.