The common understanding
of the negative relationship between bond
lengths and crystal-field splitting (CFS) is renewed by Ce<sup>3+</sup> doped garnets in this work. We represent the contradictory relationship
between structure data and spectroscopic crystal-field splitting in
detail. A satisfactory explanation is given by expressing crystal-field
splitting in terms of crystal-field parameters, on the basis of structural
data. The results show that not only the bond length, but also the
geometrical configuration have influence on the magnitude of crystal-field
splitting. Also it is found that the ligand oxygen behaves differently
with regard to multiple site substitution in garnet structure