The temperature dependence of the photorefractive effect in a polymer composite containing poly(9-vinycarbazole), tricresyl phosphate, buckminsterfullerene, and 4-(N,N- diethylamino)-&bgr;-nitrostyrene is presented. The photoconductive, electro-optic and photorefractive properties of the material have been studied in the temperature range of 22–61 °C. An apparent increase of electro-optic modulation with temperature and its eventual saturation is observed. This behavior is attributed to the temperature activated orientational mobility of the second-order nonlinear chromophores. The polarization anisotropy between thep- ands-polarized readouts is consistent with what would be expected on the basis of directly measured effective electro-optic coefficients. By correlating the electro-optic value with the diffraction efficiency, the temperature dependence of the space-charge field is obtained and explained by temperature dependencies of the dark conductivity and the photoconductivity of the material. ©1997 American Institute of Physics.