Four triarylamine organic dyes featuring functionalized-truxene unit (MXD1-4) have been designed, synthesized, and characterized. It was found that these dyes favored light harvesting, prevented dye aggregation and suppressed the dark current significantly in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), leading to enhanced performance compared to the corresponding triphenylamine dye. As a result of retarding charge recombination benefiting from the steric hindrance of truxene units, high open circuit voltages (740-772mV)were acheived based on the as-synthesized dyes. For a typical device a maximum power conversion efficiency of 6.04% was obtained under simulated AM 1.5 irradiation (100mWcm(-2)) with J(sc) = 11.5 mAcm(-2), V-oc = 772 mv, and ff = 0.68.