The present study has devised the sol-gel method using glucose and fructose as two organic additives so as to synthesize zirconia nanoparticles. The presence of these organic additives has produced some positive effect on the phase transition from tetragonal to monoclinic and played an important role in the morphology and crystallite size of the nanoparticles. Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectra have shown Zr-O-Zr bond. Crystal phase and crystallite size have been determined by X-ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis. Besides, the morphology of the samples has been investigated by field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The optical properties of the samples have been analyzed using photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, too. All the analyses consistently have shown fairly uniform nanoparticles with small size, containing both tetragonal and monoclinic phases with crystallite size between 10 and 30 nm. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.