A kind of high viscous light-scattering crystal growth inhibitors (LCGIs) are synthesized and characterized in details. The thermal, electrical and light-scattering properties of LCGIs-based solid-state electrolytes are also investigated. Addition of the high viscous LCGI to ionic crystal EMII could effectively prevent EMII from recrystallization and enhance the light-harvesting efficiency of the TiO2 photoanode, and thus larger photocurrent is obtained. The resulting solid-state dye-sensitized solar cell (ssDSSC) shows a high power conversion efficiency similar to 5.13% under simulated AM 1.5 solar spectrum irradiation at 100 mW cm(-2), and displays better long-term stability than that of referenced low viscous EMIBF4-based electrolyte. More importantly, LCGIs-based electrolytes, acting as conventional TiO2 light-scattering layers, without sacrificing device performances, provide us a feasible method to explore new solid-state electrolytes and much thinner ssDSSCs. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.