The goal of this thesis is to further develop a low-background X-ray spectrometry setup by using a “SiriusSD” silicon drift detector in the shallow underground laboratory Felsenkeller Dresden. This is realized by testing different materials and thicknesses as a passive shielding and investigating their impacts to the total background count rate. The lowest background count rate is achieved by using a combination of a 64 mm lead layer on the outside, followed by a 4 mm copper layer and a 5 mm plastic layer. With this shielding combination the total back-
ground count rate can be decreased from (5.83 ± 0.09) · 10−2 s−1 to (0.070 ± 0.009) · 10−2 s−1 . This corresponds to a background reduction of 98.8 %. Along with finding an appropriate shielding, the effect of radon present in the laboratory is examined by installing a nitrogen chamber around the detector. The result is, that radon does not have a significant impact on the background count rate. Lastly, the amount of background events induced by cosmic muons is investigated by using two muon panels in addition. The analysis of the time differences between two subsequent events in one of the muon panels and the X-ray detector shows that 1.2 % of events were muon induced.