The effects of the Pt catalyst sputter deposited on the patterned ITO glass (SD-Pt/pITO) on the photovoltaic properties and charge-transfer characteristics at the Pt/electrolyte interface of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are studied and compared with those of a conventional Pt counter electrode deposited by thermal reduction on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) glass (TD-Pt/FTO). The DSSC with the SD-Pt/pITO (sample cell) shows a lower charge-transfer resistance than that of the DSSC with the TD-Pt/FTO (reference cell), which leads to an improvement of its fill factor by about 7.6%. The long-term durability test performed for 1000 h at room temperature reveals that the sample cell retains up to 99% of its energy conversion efficiency, while that of the reference cell is degraded by about 7.2%. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.