Mg Doping Induced Effects on Structural, Optical, and Electrical Properties as Well as Cytotoxicity of CeO2 Nanostructures

Abstract

Here, Mg x Ce1−x O2 (where x = 0, 0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04, and 0.05) nanostructures have been successfully synthesized by using a simple, easy, and cost-effective soft chemical method. X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns substantiate the single-phase formation of a CeO2 cubic fluorite structure for all samples. Infrared spectroscopy results depict the presence of peaks only related to Ce-O bonding, which confirms the XRD results. It has been observed via ultraviolet (UV)-visible spectroscopy that Mg doping has tuned the optical band gap of CeO2 significantly. The electrical conductivity of CeO2 nanostructures has been found to increase with Mg doping, which is attributed to enhancement in carrier concentration due to the different valance states of dopant and host ions. Selective cytotoxic behavior of Mg x Ce1−x O2 nanostructures has been determined for neuroblastoma (SH-SY5Y) cancerous and HEK-293 healthy cells. Both doped and undoped CeO2 nanostructures have been found to be toxic for cancer cells and safe toward healthy cells. This selective toxic behavior of the synthesized nanostructures has been assigned to the different levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation in different types of cells. This makes the synthesized nanostructures a potential option for cancer therapy in the near future.