Preparation of crack-free thin films of interconnected and non-agglomerated TiO2 nanoparticles on electronically conducting fluorine doped tin oxide surfaces is instrumental in designing and developing transparent dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). A novel technique called "Atomized Spray Pyrolysis" (ASP) has been designed and developed to achieve such perfectly transparent thin films. Optical transmittance of TiO2 films produced on FTO surface by this ASP method has been compared with those obtained by doctor-blading and by hand spray methods and found that the atomized spray pyrolysis technique give films with high transparency. Dye adsorption per gram of TiO2 is 2.16 times higher in the sample produced by the ASP method when compared to the film produced by the hand spray method and is 1.60 times higher than that produced by the doctor-blading method using a commercially available TiO2 nanocrystalline paste. SEM studies show the presence of interconnected discrete particles in the film produced by the ASP method. The fill factor (ff) remains almost constant for the cells with thickness from 6 mu m to 13 mu m but the highest photovoltage and photocurrent were found in similar to 10 mu m film based DSC which gave 8.2% conversion efficiency at AM 1.5 irradiation for cells of 0.25 cm(2) active area. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.