Since the discovery of neutrino oscillations in 1967 the commonly accepted view in the physics community has been that neutrinos necessarily have a non-zero rest mass. The evidence for and implications of this assertion are discussed along with a review of contemporary experiments and their limits on the neutrino rest-mass, which has thus far eluded measurement. Nuclear beta-decay is presented as a model-independent tool for direct neutrino mass measurement and the AMBER experiment is introduced as a potential solution to the problem of neutrino mass measurement. AMBER is a novel charge spectrometer, aimed at precision electron energy measurements to probe the structure of the beta-spectrum close to its endpoint. AMBER employs a vacuum insulated inverse Kelvin probe to continuously monitor a single rate-of-change observable. A detailed technical description of the technique is provided, followed by proof of principle demonstrations and an examination of hardware performance. Finally, the capability of the AMBER technique to provide sub-eV electron energy resolution for neutrino mass measurement and other applications is explored.

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