In order to develop novel vacuum ultra violet (VUV) emitting scintillators, we grew Nd 0.5%, Tm 0.5%, and Er 0.5% doped LuF3 scintillators by the mu-pulling down method, because LuF3 has a very wide band gap and Nd3+, Tm3+, and Er3+ luminescence centers show fast and intense 5d-4f emission in VUV region. Transmittance and X-ray induced radioluminescence were studied in these three samples using our original spectrometer made by Bunkou-Keiki company. In the VUV region, transmittance of 20-60% was achieved for all the samples. The emission peaks appeared at approximately 180, 165, and 164 nm for Nd3+, Tm3+, and Er3+ doped LuF3, respectively. Using PMT R8778 (Hamamatsu), we measured their light yields under Am-241 alpha-ray excitation. Compared with Nd:LaF3 scintillator, which has 33 photoelectrons/5.5 MeV alpha, Nd:LuF3 and Tm:LuF3 showed 900 +/- 90 and 170 +/- 20 ph/5.5 MeV-alpha, respectively. Only for the Nd doped one, we can detect Cs-137 662 key gamma-ray photoabsorption peak and the light yield of 1200 +/- 120 ph/MeV was measured. We also investigated their decay time profiles by picosecond pulse X-ray equipped streak camera, and the main decay component of Nd:LuF3 turned out to be 7.63 ns. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.