The principles of phototransferred thermoluminescence (PTTL) are described, and some of the basic theoretical ideas underlying this technique are presented. It is demonstrated that the PTTL efficiency is dependent on the photon energy as well as on the activation energies of the various traps involved in the process. A simple two-traps-one-recombination-center model is capable of predicting a variety of different PTTL behaviors, some already were observed experimentally.