The source of monoenergetic electrons for the monitoring of spectrometer in the KATRIN neutrino experiment

The international project KATRIN (KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino experiment) is a next-generation tritium $\beta$-decay experiment. It is designed to measure the electron anti-neutrino mass by means of a unique electron spectrometer with sensitivity of 0.2 eV/c$^2$. This is an improvement of one order of magnitude over the last results. Important part of the measurement will rest in continuous precise monitoring of high voltage of the KATRIN main spectrometer. The monitoring will be done by means of conversion electrons emitted from a solid source based on $^{83}$Rb decay. Properties of several of these sources are studied in this thesis by means of the semiconductor $\gamma$-ray spectroscopy. Firstly, measurement of precise energy of the 9.4 keV nuclear transition observed in $^{83}$Rb decay, from which the energy of conversion electrons is derived, is reported. Secondly, measurement of activity distribution of the solid sources by means of the Timepix detector is described. Finally, a report on measurement of retention of $^{83}$Rb decay product, the isomeric state $^{83m}$Kr, in the solid sources is given.