A good example of this is photo resist. This material is used in the production of semi-conductor chips. It must be thoroughly removed for the chip to work. It was discovered that this stuff fluoresced and soon fluorescent modules were being used in semi-conductor plants. Modern universal illuminators allow for rapid change over between fluorescence and all the other reflected light techniques.
Fluorescence is valuable only when there is a fluorochrome used in the material.
Getting a fluorochrome into a material in a place that is of interest can be daunting to impossible. But were a fluorochrome exists and it is of interest this is an excellent technique. The draw backs are the same with this technique as for biological fluorescence, light intensity. You need a lot in and you may not get a lot out. Typically a fluorescence equipped materials microscope will have a 75 watt or 150 watt Xenon light source.