Structural properties and optical characterization of flower-like Mg doped NiO

In this study, un-doped and Mg doped NiO nanoparticles have been synthesized through a simple sol-gel method. To investigate the effect of Mg-doping on the structure of NiO, the obtained nanoparticles were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Flower/star like morphology was clearly observed in the SEM micrographs. The BET (Brunauer-Emmett-Teller) nitrogen absorption isotherm exhibits high specific surface area (∼37 m2 /g) for the Mg doped NiO nanoparticles. X-Ray diffraction (XRD) of the prepared Mg-NiO nanoparticles showed a face-centered cubic (f.c.c) structure, and the average particle size was estimated to be 32 nm using Scherrer’s formula. Energy Dispersive X-Ray (EDX) confirms that the NiO particles are successfully doped with Mg. Photoluminescence (PL) and UV-Vis optical absorption characteristics of the prepared nanoparticles have also been investigated in this study. The PL emission response showed a blue shift when NiO was doped with Mg, which is indicative of interstitial oxygen. The UV-Vis results demonstrate a band gap increase as NiO nanoparticles are doped with Mg.