A new series of thiocyanate-free bis-tridentate Ru(II) complexes containing azole ligands as well as an organometallic Ru-C bond are synthesized, characterized, and evaluated in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). CF3-substituted pyrazolyl, CF3-substituted triazolyl, and tetrazolyl derivatives are employed as ligands in the three neutral complexes PYZ, TRZ, and TEZ dyes, respectively. Despite their different structures, all the three complexes exhibit similar absorption features and panchromatic absorption covering the visible and near-IR regions. By switching from a pyrazolyl via triazolyl to tetrazolyl moiety in the ligand, the photocurrent value, open-circuit voltage, and overall efficiency are increased accordingly under the same conditions. Among them, photon-to-current conversion efficiency (eta) of TEZ dye reaches the maximum of 6.44% with a short-circuit photocurrent density (J(sc)) of 17.8 mA cm(-2), an open-circuit photovoltage (V-oc) of 0.54 V and fill factor (FF) of 0.67 under illumination of an AM1.5G solar simulator. TEZ dye shows a good long term light soaking stability and maintains up to more than 90% of the initial power conversion efficiency after 1000 h. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.