A solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) comprising of p-type NiO thin layer on TiO2 was fabricated in which the dye is adsorbed on the p-type oxide and the thin NiO layer acts as a hole collector as well as a barrier for charge recombination. DSSC with NiO-coated TiO2 electrodes with Ru-dye delivers I-sc = 0.15 mA and V-oc = 480 mV. It was shown that the p-type oxide materials could be successfully used to construct DSSC and the plausible charge transfer mechanism is discussed. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.