In this work,two new dyes YK-1 and YK-2 with carboxylic acid and hydroxamic acid as anchoring groups,respectively,in combination with diphenylamine as donor and perylenemonoimide as acceptor were synthesized and applied in p-type dye-sensitized solar cells (p-DSCs) and dye-sensitized photoelectrochemical cells (PEC).The results showed that the sensitizer (YK-1) based on carboxylic acid displayed a higher conversion efficiency of 0.064％ under AM 1.5 solar conditions in p-DSCs.However,it was interesting that the hydroxamic acid based sensitizer (YK-2) on NiO photocathode displayed better performance in a hydrophilic environment over a broad pH range under visible-light irradiation because of a versatile covalent attachment to NiO surfaces.This may be ascribed to hydroxamic acid anchors,which have more sites interacting with the surface of NiO in aqueous solution.This study demonstrates that YK-2 containing hydroxamic acid anchoring group is a promising candidate to achieve highly efficient and stable activity for dye-sensitized PEC system.