In this article series of nanocrystalline Sm-doped TiO 2 nanoparticles with various molar concentration of samarium were synthesized by modified ultrasonic assisted sol-gel method and calcined at 500°C for 2 h. The synthesized nanomaterials were characterized in details using XRD, TEM, XPS UV-vis DRS and BET analysis. The detailed photocatalytic activity results revealed that doped samples shows excellent photodegradation efficiency towards model pollutant Alizarin red-S (ARS) and almost 93% dye degrades within 120 minutes. The highest photodegradation efficiency was noticed for 1mole % samarium doped sample at 50 mgL -1 of catalyst dose. The photocatalytic activity of synthesized nanoparticles were also compared with commercially available ZnO and TiO 2 (Degussa, P-25) photocatalyst. It was found that synthesized nanomaterials showed enhanced photocatalytic efficiency than commercially available semiconducting photocatalyst.