Band gap engineering and enhanced photoluminescence of Mg doped ZnO nanoparticles synthesized by wet chemical route

•Significant decrease in particle size with Mg doping.•Increase in band gap with Mg doping.•Enhanced luminescence as a result of Mg doping.

In the present investigations Mg doped ZnO nanoparticles were synthesized using sol-gel method. Mg doping in nanoparticles was found to be a good method for tuning of band gap and photoluminescence of ZnO nanoparticles. Simultaneously, Mg doping also inhibited the growth of particle size and it decreased from 36.1 to 13.5 nm with the increase in doping concentration from 0% to 12%. Optical band gap was found to increase from 3.23 to 3.47 eV and photoluminescence studies revealed that visible PL emission was enhanced with doping concentration.