Proposed dark matter detectors with eV-scale sensitivities will detect a large background of atomic (nuclear) recoils from coherent photon scattering. This background climbs steeply below ∼10~eVnr, far exceeding the declining rate of low-energy Compton recoils. The upcoming generation of dark matter detectors will not be limited by this background, but further development of eV-scale and sub-eV detectors will require the use of low-Z target materials, such as helium, to avoid a large rate of coherent photon scattering, or highly efficient methods to reject photons when they scatter.
@article{arxiv.1610.07656,
title = {The coherent photon scattering background in sub-GeV/$c^2$ direct dark matter searches},
author = {Alan E. Robinson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1610.07656},
year = {2017}
}