Radon concentration measurement with a high-sensitivity radon detector at the Yemilab

Abstract

The radiation emitted from radon is a critical background in rare event search experiments conducted at the Yemi Underground Laboratory (Yemilab) in Jeongseon, Korea. A Radon Reduction System (RRS) has been developed and installed in Yemilab to reduce radon concentration in the air. The RRS primarily provides a purified air of 50 m 3 / h to the cleanroom used to assemble crystal detectors in the AMoRE, a neutrinoless double beta decay search experiment. RRS can reduce the radon level by a factor of 300, so a high -sensitivity radon detector was required. A highly sensitive radon detector was constructed using a 70 L chamber with a large PIN photodiode to measure radon concentration in the purified air. The radon detector shows an excellent resolution of 72 keV (FWHM) for 6.003 MeV alphas from 218 Po decay and a sensitivity down to 23 . 8 +/- 2 . 1 mBq/m 3 with a boil -off N 2 gas sample. The radon concentration level from the RRS measured by the radon detector was below 0 . 29 Bq / m 3 with a reduction factor of about 300.