Intense research in photochemistry has provided a substantial base of photochemical technologies for industrial application. The state-of-the-art in applied photochemistry has been reviewed through 1989 (1) and subsequently benchmarked at the International Symposium on Perspectives in Photochemistry in 1992 (2). The oldest recorded continuously practiced application of photochemical technology is the processing of natural dyes of the indigo class as used in the traditional Japanese textile craft of aizome (see Dyes, natural; Textiles) (3). Practice of aizome, popular for over 10 centuries, is no longer of commercial importance.Photoimaging is another use of photochemical technology (see Imaging technology). The first known photographic image was recorded by Nièpce in 1826 by the photocross-linking of bitumen (see Coal) coated in a thin layer on a glass plate; exposure of the plate took several days in a camera oscura (4). Bitumen is a naturally occurring mixture of oligomerized, aromatic, and unsaturated hydrocarbons which undergo cross-linking on absorption of the ultraviolet component of sunlight. Oil of lavender was used as a developer to remove uncrosslinked hydrocarbon from unexposed regions of the plate to reveal the negative image (see Photography). This photochemical innovation gave rise to modern photopolymer technology which is responsible for the environmentally significant solventless coatings ( qv) industry (5,6).Photochemical technology has been developed so as to increasingly exploit inorganic and organometallic photochemistries (2, 7), recognizing the importance of photoinduced electron transfer as the phenomenological basis of a majority of commercially successful photochemical technologies (5, 8). Use of coherent light sources in industrial applications has led to the field of photodynamic therapy as a photochemically based medical technology (9-11). The application of photochemistry to information storage and communication processes is expected (12) (see Resist materials).