Investigation of radioactivity-induced backgrounds in EXO-200

The search for neutrinoless double-beta decay $(0\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\beta}\ensuremath{\beta})$ requires extremely low background and a good understanding of their sources and their influence on the rate in the region of parameter space relevant to the $0\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\beta}\ensuremath{\beta}$ signal. We report on studies of various $\ensuremath{\beta}$ and $\ensuremath{\gamma}$ backgrounds in the liquid-xenon-based EXO-$2000\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\beta}\ensuremath{\beta}$ experiment. With this work we try to better understand the location and strength of specific background sources and compare the conclusions to radioassay results taken before and during detector construction. Finally, we discuss the implications of these studies for EXO-200 as well as for the next-generation, tonne-scale nEXO detector.