Optical and structural properties of Mn doped MgO powders synthesized by Sol-gel process

Magnesium oxide (MgO) powders doped with different amounts of manganese (Mn2+) ions were synthesized by sol-gel process. The Mn concentration was changed from 0 to 5%. Here we attempted to fabricate Mn doped MgO samples and characterized them for their optical and structural properties. The Ultraviolet-Visible analysis (UV-vis), infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) have been used to characterize the optical properties, phase evolution and crystallinity of the obtained samples. X-ray diffraction patterns revealed that MgO powders obtained were crystallized. The crystallite size of the obtained MgO powders is around 337.9 Ǻ. The transmittance has decreased from 98 to 65% and the band gap of pure MgO has been found to 4.05 eV and it is shifted to 3.92 eV for 5% Mn doped MgO. The results obtained in this study were discussed comparatively with those cited in the literature.