Germanate glasses have potential applications as optical fibers. Materials doped with rare earth ions are good candidates for optical, lasing, and magnetic applications. Based on the ternary system, CeO 2 -Na 2 O-GeO 2 a series of six glasses were fabricated using powder fusion, and varying the Na 2 O content from 0 to 45 mol%, and a CeO 2 content constant at 3 mol%. The glasses were analyzed by FT-IR, Raman and X-ray photoelectron (XPS) spectroscopies to obtain information about the glass structure, cerium oxidation's state and how it is introduced in the glass network. FT-IR and Raman spectra revealed the presence of GeO 6 and GeO 4 groups as well as Q 2 and Q 3 units in the glasses with alkali low content. XPS spectra analysis revealed that the cerium ions were reduced from Ce 4+ to Ce 3+ . The nonbonding to total oxygen ratio was estimated from the curve fitting of the O 1s core level spectra. Density and elastic parameters showed a nonlineal tendency in the change of the physical properties as a function of Na 2 O content. Finally, photoluminescence spectroscopy confirmed the presence of Ce 3+ ions. The characteristic 4f ? 5d electronic transitions at 360 nm were detected, when a 280 nm excitation line of pulsed laser was used as excitation source.