Fas ligand (L)/CD95L, a proapoptotic member of the TNF family, is a potential target for clinical intervention in various diseases. In the present study, we generated a humanized anti-human FasL mAb and characterized the epitopes of neutralizing mAbs by extensive alanine-scanning mutagenesis of human FasL. The predicted molecular model of FasL trimer revealed that the mAbs recognize largely overlapped conformational epitopes that are composed of two clusters, one around the outer tip-forming D-E loop and another near the top of FasL. Both of these sites on FasL are critically involved in the direct interaction with the corresponding receptor, Fas. These results suggest that the mAbs efficiently neutralize FasL cytotoxicity by masking both of these FasL/Fas contact sites.

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We studied the impacts of front contact layers composed of transparent conducting oxide (TCO) and transparent oxide semiconductor (TOS) layers on the performance of Cu(In,Ga)Se 2 (CIGS) solar cells with glass/Mo/CIGS/CdS/TOS/TCO in relaxed and metastable states. After annealing under illumination, the CIGS solar cells with KF and NaF postdeposition treatments exhibited metastable increases in open-circuit voltage, fill factor, and the resulting conversion efficiency with a metastable decrease in short-circuit current density. These are partly attributed to an increase in metastable acceptor density in the CIGS layers, being stable for a day even at room temperature, with a reduced space charge width. We found that the net acceptor density evaluated by capacitance-voltage measurements largely varied depending on the TOS/TCO layers, whereas the open-circuit voltage was identical. On the other hand, no significant differences in both the net acceptor density and open-circuit voltage were observed regardless of the TOS/TCO layers in the relaxed state produced by annealing in the dark. The results suggest that the CdS/CIGS heterojunction can no longer be treated as an n + /p junction in the metastable state and that the evaluated acceptor density was apparent values with large difference originating from different potential distribution in the CdS layer, which is related to the TOS/CdS and TCO/CdS junctions. In addition, the TOS/TCO layers largely affected the short-circuit current density owing to their optical constants and film thicknesses. The presented results highlight the importance of the design of CdS/TOS/TCO layers in solar cells operated in metastable states.

Amorphous (a-) InO-based front contact layers composed of transparent conducting oxide (TCO) and transparent oxide semiconductor (TOS) layers were proved to be effective in enhancing the short-circuit current density (J) of Cu(In,Ga)Se (CIGS) solar cells with a glass/Mo/CIGS/CdS/TOS/TCO structure, while maintaining high fill factor (FF) and open-circuit voltage (V). An n-type a-In-Ga-Zn-O layer was introduced between the CdS and TCO layers. Unlike unintentionally doped ZnO broadly used as TOS layers in CIGS solar cells, the grain-boundary(GB)-free amorphous structure of the a-In-Ga-Zn-O layers allowed high electron mobility with superior control over the carrier density (N). High FF and V values were achieved in solar cells containing a-In-Ga-Zn-O layers with N values broadly ranging from 2 × 10 to 3 × 10 cm. The decrease in FF and V produced by the electronic inhomogeneity of solar cells was mitigated by controlling the series resistance within the TOS layer of CIGS solar cells. In addition, a-InO:H and a-In-Zn-O layers exhibited higher electron mobilities than the ZnO:Al layers conventionally used as TCO layers in CIGS solar cells. The InO-based layers exhibited lower free carrier absorption while maintaining similar sheet resistance than ZnO:Al. The TCO and TOS materials and their combinations did not significantly change the V of the CIGS solar cells and the mini-modules.