Characterization of Two High Purity Germanium (HPGe) Detectors

High Purity Germanium (HPGe) detectors are highly useful for screening materials that are to be used in rare-event experiments, such as searches for neutrinoless double beta decay. Such detectors can achieve excellent energy resolution which is essential to identify radio-impurities through gamma ray spectroscopy. In this poster, we report on detector calibration, measurement of the energy resolution and detection efficiency using point sources of known activity. In addition, we report on the observed background in the screening setup and minimum detectable activity (MDA) for isotopes of interest in low-background experiments. Finally, we report on validation of the screening performance with reference powder sources from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in a Marinelli beaker geometry, which is more typical of the geometry for samples of interest.