AMoRE is an international project to search for the neutrinoless double beta decay of $$^{100}\hbox {Mo}$$ 100 Mo using a detection technology consisting of magnetic microcalorimeters (MMCs) and molybdenum-based scintillating crystals. Data collection has begun for the current AMORE-I phase of the project, an upgrade from the previous pilot phase. AMoRE-I employs thirteen $${}^\mathrm {48depl.}\hbox {Ca}^{100}\hbox {MoO}_4$$ 48 depl . Ca 100 MoO 4 crystals and five $$\hbox {Li}_2^{100}\hbox {MoO}_4$$ Li 2 100 MoO 4 crystals for a total crystal mass of 6.2 kg. Each detector module contains a scintillating crystal with two MMC channels for heat and light detection. We report the present status of the experiment and the performance of the detector modules.

We developed a simple small-scale experiment to measure the beta decay spectrum of $$^{3}$$ 3 H. The aim of this research is to investigate the presence of sterile neutrinos in the keV region. Tritium nuclei were embedded in a 1$$\times$$ × 1$$\times$$ × 1 cm$$^3$$ 3 LiF crystal from the $$^6$$ 6 Li(n,$$\alpha$$ α )$$^3$$ 3 H reaction. The energy of the beta electrons absorbed in the LiF crystal was measured with a magnetic microcalorimeter at 40 mK. We report a new method of sample preparation, experiments, and analysis of $$^3$$ 3 H beta measurements. The spectrum of a 10-hour measurement agrees well with the expected spectrum of $$^3$$ 3 H beta decay. The analysis results indicate that this method can be used to search for keV-scale sterile neutrinos.