Chessboard-based achromatic binary Zone Plate

• A chessboard-like multiplexing strategy is introduced for designing achromatic zone plates. • Multiplexing below Nyquist frequency combined with morphological processing results in smoother zone planes with no jarred edges. • Simulations and experiment in an optical bench show the achromatic characteristics of the chessboard-like zone plates. We numerically and experimentally demonstrate the performance of a new kind of diffractive binary zone plate for chromatic aberration compensation: the chessboard-based zone plate. The proposed achromatic zone plate consists of two spatially multiplexed zone plates following the geometry given by a chessboard and improved with morphological filters and combination under the Nyquist frequency, to mitigate aliasing effects. The obtained results are compared with those given by a random pixel-based multiplexed zone plate, reported in the literature, showing similar optical behaviour. However, the chessboard-based zone plate presents a smoother appearance without the high-frequency irregularities of the random-based designs that could be more resistant to manufacturing errors. The proposed achromatic zone plate could result of interest in fields such as solar concentration, lithography, imaging systems, visual optics, and so on.