The effects of Si -doped MgO have been investigated in order to improve the material properties of the MgO protective layer in plasma display panels. A small amount of Si is added to the MgO pellet while the MgO layer is being deposited by using an electron-beam evaporation method. Both the surface characteristics of the protecting layer and the electro-optical properties of 4 in. test panels are investigated, such as XRD patterns, SEM images, firing and sustain voltages, secondary electron emission coefficient($gamma$), luminance, luminous efficacy and lifetime. The firing and sustain voltage are minimized when Si concentration is 0.038%, where the luminance and luminous efficacy increase up to 17% and 26% compared with that of the pure MgO film, separately, and lifetime also shows good characteristics.