Three organic dyes with D-pi-D-pi-A structure based on triarylamine, dimethylarylamine, and rhodanine-3-acetic acid moieties are designed and synthesized. Incorporating thiophene moieties into the system affords sensitizers with high molar extinction coefficients. These dyes were applied into nanocrystalline TiO(2) dye-sensitized solar cells through standard operations. For a typical device the maximal monochromatic incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency (IPCE) can reach 73%, with a short-circuit photocurrent density (J(sc)) of 7.3 mA/cm(2), an open-circuit voltage (V(oc)) of 636 mV, and a fill factor (ff) of 0.61, corresponding to an overall conversion efficiency (eta) of 2.86%. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.