The possibility to probe new physics scenarios of light Majorana neutrino exchange and right-handed currents at the planned next generation neutrinoless double β decay experiment SuperNEMO is discussed. Its ability to study different isotopes and track the outgoing electrons provides the means to discriminate different underlying mechanisms for the neutrinoless double β decay by measuring the decay half-life and the electron angular and energy distributions.a

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since 2013, is a low-radioactivity detector dedicated to measuring ultra low natural radionuclide contaminations of 208 Tl ( 232 Th chain) and 214 Bi ( 238 U chain) in thin materials. The total sensitive surface area of the detector is 3.6 m 2 . The detector has been developed to measure the radiopurity of the selenium double β-decay source foils of the SuperNEMO experiment. In this paper the design and performance of the detector, and results of the background measurements in 208 Tl and 214 Bi, are presented, and the validation of the BiPo-3 measurement with a calibrated aluminium foil is discussed. Results of the 208 Tl and 214 Bi activity measurements of the first enriched 82 Se foils of the double β-decay SuperNEMO experiment are reported. The sensitivity of the BiPo-3 detector for the measurement of the SuperNEMO 82 Se foils is A( 208 Tl) < 2 µBq/kg (90% C.L.) and A( 214 Bi) < 140 µBq/kg (90% C.L.

SuperNEMO is a double-β decay experiment, which will employ the successful tracker–calorimeter technique used in the recently completed NEMO-3 experiment. SuperNEMO will implement 100 kg of double-β decay isotope, reaching a sensitivity to the neutrinoless double-β decay (0νββ) half-life of the order of 1026 yr, corresponding to a Majorana neutrino mass of 50–100 meV. One of the main goals and challenges of the SuperNEMO detector development programme has been to reach a calorimeter energy resolution, ΔE∕E, around 3%∕E(MeV) σ, or 7%∕E(MeV) FWHM (full width at half maximum), using a calorimeter composed of large volume plastic scintillator blocks coupled to photomultiplier tubes. We describe the R&D programme and the final design of the SuperNEMO calorimeter that has met this challenging goal

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