Anti-reflection film and process for the preparation of the same

1. A process for the preparation of an anti-reflection film comprising the steps of:

forming a hard coating layer on a transparent support;

coating a coating solution on the hard coating layer to form a low refractive index layer having an essentially uniform thickness in the range of 50 to 400 nm and a surface roughness in terms of an arithmetic mean in the range of 0.05 to 2 m, wherein the low refractive index layer comprises inorganic particles, a cross-linked binder polymer and a silane coupling agent, said inorganic particles being surface treated with the silane coupling agent, and said silane coupling agent being combined with the binder polymer by a reaction of a double bond of the silane coupling agent; and then

embossing the low refractive index layer to form a rough surface on the low refractive index layer, wherein the hard coating layer has an essentially uniform thickness, and the low refractive index layer has an essentially uniform thickness in the range of 50 to 400 nm after embossing the layers, and wherein the cross-linked binder polymer is a polymerization product of a monomer having two or more ethylenically unsaturated groups.

2. The process as defined in claim 1 , wherein the low refractive index layer has a refractive index than a refractive index of the support.

3. The process as defined in claim 1 , wherein the low refractive index layer has a rough surface such that an area of a roughness curve having a period of 1 to 10 μis more than 15% based on the total area of the rough surface.

4. The process as defined in claim 1 , wherein the inorganic particles have a mean particle size of 10 to 100 nm.

5. The process as defined in claim 1 , wherein the inorganic particles have a mean particle size of 10 to 40 nm.

6. The process as defined in claim 1 , wherein the inorganic particles are so deposited to superpose at least one particle on another particle, to form voids surrounded by the particles.

7. The process as defined in claim 1 , wherein a high refractive index layer is further provided between the hard coating layer and the low refractive index layer, said high refractive index layer having a refractive index higher than the refractive index of the support, and said high refractive index layer having an essentially uniform thickness.

8. The process as defined in claim 7 , wherein a middle refractive index layer is further provided between the hard coating layer and the high refractive index layer, said middle refractive index layer having a refractive index higher than the refractive index of the support and lower than the refractive index of the high refractive index layer, and said middle refractive index layer having an essentially uniform thickness.

9. The process as defined in claim 1 , wherein the inorganic particles are made of a fluoride of an alkali metal, a fluoride of an alkaline earth metal or silicon dioxide.

10. The process as defined in claim 1 , wherein the silane coupling agent is represented by the formula (IIa) or (IIb):

wherein each of R 11 and R 15 independently is hydrogen or methyl, R 16 is an alkyl group having 1 to 10 carbon atoms, an aryl group having 1 to 10 carbon atoms, an alkenyl group having 2 to 10 carbon atoms, an alkynyl group having 2 to 10 carbon atoms or an aralkyl group having 7 to 10 carbon atoms, and each of R 12 , R 13 , R 14 , R 17 and R 18 independently is an alkyl group having 1 to 6 carbon atoms or an acyl group having 2 to 6 carbon atoms.