Patent ID: 8711339

Claim:
A spectral sensor for checking a document of value which, upon the operation of the spectral sensor, is transported with a transport speed past the spectral sensor, comprising: an illumination device having a multiplicity of light sources whose emission spectra are different from each other, wherein the multiplicity of light sources, upon the operation of the spectral sensor, are successively switched on and off, to thereby illuminate a region of the document of value with an illumination sequence of light pulses with different emission spectra successively, and an imaging optic by which the light emitted by the illumination device, upon the operation of the spectral sensor, is imaged onto the illuminated region of the document of value, and a detection device that detects light which, upon the operation of the spectral sensor, emanates from the region illuminated with the light pulses of the illumination sequence, wherein for each of the light pulses of the illumination sequence there is detected a measured value which corresponds to an intensity of the detected light, and wherein the multiplicity of light sources cover at least one of a section of the near-infrared spectral range and a section of the visually visible spectral range in such a way that through the detection of the measured values, recording by the spectral sensor of a spectral intensity distribution in at least one of the section of the near-infrared spectral range and in the section of the visually visible spectral range is enabled.