The state of the art in the title field including vacuum thermochromatography and sublimatography is discussed. Thermochromatography has proven to be effective in studying properties of the transactinoid elements, in separation of products from spallation reactions, in the production of radionuclides for nuclear medicine. Applications of the method for the radiochemical activation analysis seem especially prospective. From the theoretical side, the dependence of deposition temperatures on experimental parameters is reasonably well understood for uniform surfaces while reported theoretical calculations of peak shapes have not yet been confronted with the experimental data extensively enough. The case of nonuniform surfaces is a problem for future research. Some interesting non-analytical applications of the method can be suggested, such as measuring the diffusion coefficients of the adsorbates and enthalpies and entropies of adsorption.