The halogenated (brominated or iodinated) squaraines have promising potential in the application of photodynamic therapy (PDT). Though aniline-based squaraines are the most classical squaraine dyes, no halogenated derivatives with the halogen atoms directly incorporated in the conjugation skeleton of the squaraine chromophore have been reported so far. In this work, a stepwise synthetic approach, i.e. by way of the halogenated semi-squaraines, was applied successfully to prepare halogenated asymmetric aniline-based squaraines. Such a structure makes iodine atoms be able to exert significant heavy atom effect on the intersystem crossing (ISC) efficiency of the squaraine dye. As a result, the iodinated asymmetric squaraine (SQ–OH–I) exhibits a singlet oxygen (¹O₂) quantum yield as high as 0.54. In contrast, the ¹O₂ quantum yield of the non-halogenated squaraine analogue (SQ–OH) is only 0.02.