A highly efficient heteroleptic ruthenium (II) complex cis-di(thiocyanato)(4,4'-dicarboxylic acid-2,2'-bipyridine)(4,4'-di-(2-(4-ditolylamine phenyl)ethenyl)-2,2'-bipyridine) ruthenium (II) (IJ-1) was synthesized and characterized, which when anchored on nanocrystalline TiO2 films exhibited high power conversion efficiency, 10.3%, and incident photon to electron conversion efficiency, 87%.