Photonic charges were a type of explosive charge that created a photonic burst. At some point between 44 BBY and 32 BBY, a group of burglars used a non-incendiary photonic charge while attempting to steal a shipment of diamonds from a mining outpost on the planet Codia I's second moon.
They used the device to destroy the fuel rod in the outpost's power core, but the photonic burst interacted with the core, which was primarily made of solid accelerite, and produced unusual radioactivity that supressed the entire light spectrum in the outpost and drove the Defel miner Rosack Denahst mad. After Denahst had slaughtered all the burglars, the Jedi Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi was eventually able to reassemble the shattered fuel rod using the Force, ending the radioactivity and restoring Denahst's sanity. Many years later in around 0 BBY, Kenobi would reflect on the incident and wrote about the charge in his journals while sheltering in his home on the planet Tatooine during a sandstorm.
In the new Star Wars canon, photonic charges were mentioned in the second issue of the Star Wars: Obi-Wan comic series which was written by Christopher Cantwell, illustrated by Luke Ross, and published on June 29, 2022. The charges originated in the Star Wars Legends continuity, where they were mentioned in the 2013 novel The Last Jedi, which written by Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff.
In the new Star Wars canon, photonic charges were mentioned in the second issue of the Star Wars: Obi-Wan comic series which was written by Christopher Cantwell, illustrated by Luke Ross, and published on June 29, 2022. The charges originated in the Star Wars Legends continuity, where they were mentioned in the 2013 novel The Last Jedi, which written by Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff.