Development of Anti-Reflection (AR) Coating on Plastic Panels for Display Applications

Traditionally, various vacuum-based processes have been used for producing interference-type anti-reflection (AR) coatings on large area substrates for different commercial applications. In this paper, the development of sol-gel derived AR coating on large plastic substrates for display application is presented. The sol-gel dip coating process was used to deposit thin films on large size plastic panels. By developing sols with different refractive indices, multi-layer thin-film AR coating stacks were designed and fabricated. These coatings possess good uniformity and meet stringent automotive specifications. This technology has been commercialized successfully for dashboard instrument panel application in Toyota's new hybrid engine car, named Prius.