Monoenergetic photons from a pulsed laser diode or LED are commonly used to calibrate the detector response of high-resolution calorimetric detectors. However, when the detector’s resolution is larger than the energy of a single photon, a calibration is normally derived using Poisson statistics. In this paper, we clarify the assumptions implicit in this calibration method, before considering how a more realistic model of a detector’s performance will violate these assumptions, biasing the calibration. Finally, we judge the individual impact of specific detector parameters on our calibration, and conclude with discussion of both the limits of our calculations and the implications for state-of-the art detectors.

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• Particle dark matter
• Solid-state detectors
• Calorimeters
• Particle detectors
• Precision measurements