This study is devoted to the sonochemical synthesis of un-and Zn-doped silver sulfide (Ag2S) nanostructures and evaluation of the parameters that affect its structural, morphological and optical properties. To unravel any changes in the characteristics of the particles, the XRD and FESEM techniques, in addition to photoluminescence (PL), Raman and UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopies, were applied. According to the analyses, 15 min sonication using 200W power can provide the highest quality of the Ag2S crystals. Moreover, it was found out that Zn doping shifts the XRD peaks of Ag2S to higher angles and declines crystallinity of the samples while it does not change the spherical shape of the Ag2S particles. The other impact of Zn presence in the crystal lattice of Ag2S was declared to be increasing the size of the Ag2S nanostructures. Importantly, based on the PL results, the un- and Zn-doped Ag2S particles present several emission bands lying in the visible spectrum of light due to their specific optical near band emission (NBE) and crystal defects. As the Tauc plots spectra demonstrated, increasing the Zn concentration decreases the optical band gap energy of the Ag2S nanostructures. Also, the Raman results unraveled the impact of synthesis conditions on the optical and crystalline properties of the grown structures. (C) 2018 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. and The Society of Powder Technology Japan. All rights reserved.