Funnily enough, all diodes actually are light emitting, and light receiving, to some extent. It's why diodes are generally in opaque encapsulation. Whether a PN junction is an LED, PV cell or rectifier/switch is a matter of what the design optimises for. Try putting a voltmeter across a glass encased signal diode and shining a strong light on it to see it act as a PV cell. One wouldn't normally use a diode as a PV cell, but if the desired power was very small, a glass encased diode might be used as a cheap PV cell.
Of course chips don’t work if the smoke escapes, internally they operate on smoke. We tested this with a chip socket connected to 120VAC. All the chips that we connected released smoke, and none of them ever worked again.
From tinkering with electronics my brain has imprinted the smell of various components (resistors, capacitors), isolation. I often wonder what effect inhaling those fumes had on me, can't imagine it was a positive one.