Calcium metasilicate is a kind of practicable luminescence host.A new phosphor which is Ce

3+

activated CaSiO

3

was prepared by a solid state reaction at high temperature. The emission and excitation spectra of CaSiO

3

:Ce

3+

were investigated at liquid nitrogen temperature and at room temperature. Under ultraviolet or cathode-ray excitation CaSiO

3

:Ce

3+

phosphors show a considerably strong bluish-purple emission consisting of two overlapping bands with peaks at about 396nm and 430nm

respectively.With a energy separation of about 2000cm

-1

these two bands correspond with the transition of the lowest-5d state to the

2

F

5/2

and

2

F

7/2

terminal levels.The excitation spectrum of Ce

3+

in CaSiO

3

distributes in the region from 230nm to 380nm

which is a broad band at least consisting of three overlapping subbands. These bands rise from the ground state to different 5d levels splited by the crystal field and from different Ce

3+

ions positioned at distinct Ca

2+

sites.This Ce

3+

-activated phosphor shows a very fast fluorescence decay. The fluorescence lifetime of Ce

3+

in CaSiO

3

rs approximately 30ns with' excitationof a 337.1nm laser pulse with a width of 6ns at room temperature.In the paper

the influence of preparing condition

Ce

3+

concent ration

crystal structure as well as charge compensator on the luminescence properties of Ce

3+

are discussed.