Crystals of Ce3+-doped (LuxY1-x)(3)Al5O12 (LuYAG) have been grown and studied by X-ray powder diffraction, emission spectroscopy, excitation spectroscopy and X-ray excited fluorescence spectroscopy. The X-ray powder diffraction pattern revealed that the as-grown LuYAG: Ce crystal possessed the garnet structure. Compared with Ce3+-doped Y3Al5O12 (YAG), the absorption bands associated with the 4f-5d transition shifted to shorter wavelengths, the emission band that originated from a transition from the lowest 5d level to the F-2 ground state of the Ce3+ ions shifted to the blue, which was probably due to a larger Stokes shift of the emission, and the reduction of relative intensity of antisite defect emission in the X-ray excited fluorescence spectra revealed that introducing Lu ions into YAG could reduce the antisite defect. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.