Energy storage
Another application of the photoacoustic effect is its ability to estimate the chemical energies stored in various steps of a photochemical reaction. Following light absorption photophysical and photochemical conversions occur, which store part of the light energy as chemical energy. Energy storage leads to less heat evolution. The resulting smaller photoacoustic signal thus gives a quantitative estimate of the extent of the energy storage. For transient species this requires the measurement of the signal in the relevant time scale and the capability to extract from the temporal part of the signal the time-dependent heat evolution, by proper deconvolution. There are numerous examples for this application. A similar application is the study of the conversion of light energy to electrical energy in solar cells. A special example is the application of the photoacoustic effect in photosynthesis research.