Apparatus for the direct optical capture of skin prints and documents

An apparatus for direct optical capture of security-relevant objects, the apparatus comprising:

• a cover layer with a placement surface for a security-relevant object;
• a contrast enhancing layer with transparent areas and nontransparent contrast shields for limiting incident angles of light remitted by the object through the placement surface into a layer sequence and for predominately passing light remitted by portions of the object placed on the placement surface without an air gap;
• a sensor layer with pixels arranged in a two-dimensional pixel raster, wherein each pixel has a light-sensitive element and a transparent passage area, and wherein the light-sensitive element detects light coming only from a direction of the placement surface;
• a substrate serving as a support for the layer sequence;
• and
• an illumination layer for emitting illumination light which illuminates the object through the placement surface, the illumination layer having a plurality of point light sources which serve to emit in the direction of the placement surface in an angular area which is limited in such a way that a total internal reflection is suppressed at the placement surface of the cover layer;
• wherein
• each light-sensitive element of the sensor layer has an associated nontransparent contrast shield within the contrast enhancing layer;
• the associated nontransparent contrast shield is arranged at a distance above the light-sensitive element and has a surface area at least as large as an active region of the light-sensitive element to predominantly pass remitted light with large incidence angles to the light-sensitive element;
• and
• the associated nontransparent contrast shield is arranged at a distance above the light-sensitive element such that the contrast shield centrally covers at least 60% of the active region of the light-sensitive element when viewed from the direction of the placement surface.