Measurement of the Background Activities of a 100Mo-enriched Powder Sample for an AMoRE Crystal Material by using Fourteen High-Purity Germanium Detectors

TL;DR

This study measures the low-level radioactive contamination in a 100Mo-enriched powder used for crystal growth in neutrinoless double-beta decay experiments, ensuring minimal background noise.

Contribution

It provides precise activity measurements of natural radioisotopes in 100Mo-enriched powder using an array of high-purity germanium detectors at an underground lab.

Findings

Radioisotope activities quantified in the sample.

Activities of key isotopes are below background thresholds.

Data supports low-background requirements for AMoRE-II.

Abstract

The Advanced Molybdenum-based Rare process Experiment in its second phase (AMoRE-II) will search for neutrinoless double-beta (0{\nu}\b{eta}\b{eta}) decay of 100Mo in 200 kg of molybdate crystals. To achieve the zero-background level in the energy range of the double-beta decay Q-value of 100Mo, the radioactive contamination levels in AMoRE crystals should be low. 100EnrMoO3 powder, which is enriched in the 100Mo isotope, is used to grow the AMoRE crystals. A shielded array of fourteen high-purity germanium detectors with 70% relative efficiency each was used for the measurement of background activities in a sample of 9.6-kg powder. The detector system named CAGe located at the Yangyang underground laboratory was designed for measuring low levels of radioactivity from natural radioisotopes or cosmogenic nuclides such as 228Ac, 228Th, 226Ra, 88Y, and 40K. The activities of 228Ac and 228Th in the powder sample were 0.88 \pm 0.12 mBq/kg and 0.669 \pm 0.087 mBq/kg, respectively. The activity of 226Ra was measured to be 1.50 \pm 0.23 mBq/kg. The activity of 88Y was 0.101 \pm 0.016 mBq/kg. The activity of 40K was found as 36.0 \pm 4.1 mBq/kg.