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We established Q spectroscopy, a novel method for the study of alpha decay, by combining 4π detection scheme with a low-temperature microcalorimeter. A 4π metal absorber guarantees absolute measurement of radioactivity without energy loss in the source and absorber. As a clear demonstration of Q spectroscopy, the 241Am alpha source enclosed by a thin gold foil was measured below 100 mK. Its resulting energy spectrum has two dominant peaks with 10 keV FWHM. The more dominant one corresponds to the complete absorption of the Q value, the total decay energy, and the less dominant one to γ-ray escapes. Consequential one-to-one correspondence with high-energy resolution appears between mixed radioisotopes and peaks in Q spectroscopy, which will simplify procedures of nuclear material analysis.

The advanced molybdenum-based rare process experiment (AMoRE) aims to search for neutrinoless double beta decay ($$0\nu \beta \beta $$0νββ) of $$^{100}$$100Mo with $$\sim 100\,\hbox {kg}$$∼100kg of $$^{100}$$100Mo-enriched molybdenum embedded in cryogenic detectors with a dual heat and light readout. At the current, pilot stage of the AMoRE project we employ six calcium molybdate crystals with a total mass of 1.9 kg, produced from $$^{48}$$48Ca-depleted calcium and $$^{100}$$100Mo-enriched molybdenum ($$^{48{{\text {depl}}}}\hbox {Ca}^{100}\hbox {MoO}_{4}$$48deplCa100MoO4). The simultaneous detection of heat (phonon) and scintillation (photon) signals is realized with high resolution metallic magnetic calorimeter sensors that operate at milli-Kelvin temperatures. This stage of the project is carried out in the Yangyang underground laboratory at a depth of 700 m. We report first results from the AMoRE-Pilot $$0\nu \beta \beta $$0νββ search with a 111 kg day live exposure of $$^{48{{\text {depl}}}}\hbox {Ca}^{100}\hbox {MoO}_{4}$$48deplCa100MoO4 crystals. No evidence for $$0\nu \beta \beta $$0νββ decay of $$^{100}$$100Mo is found, and a upper limit is set for the half-life of $$0\nu \beta \beta $$0νββ of $$^{100}$$100Mo of $$T^{0\nu }_{1/2} > 9.5\times 10^{22}~\hbox {years}$$T1/20ν>9.5×1022years at 90% C.L. This limit corresponds to an effective Majorana neutrino mass limit in the range $$\langle m_{\beta \beta }\rangle \le (1.2-2.1)\,\hbox {eV}$$⟨mββ⟩≤(1.2-2.1)eV.