Dear student,
The two uses of photoelectric cells are as follows:
(1) : In a burglar-alarm in house or car, etc. :
A burglar alarm is a device which consists of an infrared light source and a photoelectric cell and it is used to protect things from being stolen or used for making an alert. In this device, light from an infrared source falls continuously on the photoelectric cell and when the passage of this light source is blocked by something it makes an alert.
(2) : to detect light :
Photoelectric cells were originally used to detect light, using a vacuum tube containing a cathode, to emit electrons, and an anode, to gather the resulting current. Today, these " phototubes " have advanced to semiconductor-based photodiodes that are used in applications such as solar cells and fiber optics telecommunications.
thanks and regards...