  Proxima b is a terrestrial exoplanet orbiting in the habitable zone of our
closest star Proxima Centauri. The separation between the planet and the star
is about 40 mas and this is with current instruments only reachable with direct
imaging, using a visual extreme AO system like SPHERE/ZIMPOL. Unfortunately,
the planet falls under the first airy ring at 2$\lambda$/D in the I band, which
degrades achievable contrast. We present the design, optical simulations and
testing of an amplitude pupil mask for ZIMPOL that reshapes the PSF, increasing
the contrast at $r = 2\lambda$/D about an order of magnitude. The simple mask
can be inserted directly into the current setup of SPHERE.
