GERDA has been a pioneering experiment in the search for the still undetected neutrinoless double beta (0𝜈𝛽𝛽)-decay of 76Ge and this will also hold for the successor experiment LEGEND. The discovery of this extremely rare process would prove the Majorana character of neutrinos and consequently physics beyond the Standard Model. For an explicit identification of a signal caused by the 0𝜈𝛽𝛽-decay, which correspond to an energy of 2039 keV for 76Ge, a precise understanding of all background contributions in the ROI is crucial.
However, previous experiments indicated 𝛾 lines produced by neutron activation (𝑛,𝑝) and neutron scattering (𝑛,𝑛’) processes on 76Ge and 74Ge but until now, their existence could not be confirmed adequately. In this experiment an enriched Ge-sample was alternately irradiated by 14 MeV neutrons from a DT generator and measured by an optimized HPGe detection setup. The 𝛾 spectrum of more than 51 irradiation cycles shows three peaks in the energy region around 2039 keV which
means that germanium itself can contribute to potential background in all 76Ge 0𝜈𝛽𝛽-decay experiments such as LEGEND and GERDA. The experimental procedure and the results will be presented.