In this investigation, cadmium sulfide (CdS)-sensitized stable Gratzel solar cell has been fabricated, where nano-crystal line titanium oxide (TiO2) photoelectrode has been deposited on SnO2:F coated glass substrate by facing target reactive sputtering technique and CdS sensitizing layer has been deposited by chemical bath deposition technique. The X-ray diffraction measurement reveals that both the TiO2 and CdS layer show polycrystalline nature. The optical absorbance edge of the photoelectrode extends up to 540 nm, as apparent from optical measurements. This solar cell shows good photocurrent-photovoltage characteristics with fill factor 59% and maximum efficiency 1.04% with the use of a polysulfide electrolyte under back side illumination. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.