Ferroelectric Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3(PZT) (001) thin films, integrated to highTcsuperconducting YBa2Cu3O7−x(YBCO) films used as electrodes, have been studied for their photocurrent response and permittivity as a function of temperature. A stable photocurrent was observed to increase with increasing the temperature over the range of 25–350 °C. This increase was found to be strongly polarization dependent and due to the change of the pyroelectric coefficient of PZT thin film with temperature. The pyroelectric coefficient for a PZT sample was measured as ∼30 nC/cm2 K at room temperature, and ∼80 nC/cm2 K at 320 °C. The YBCO electrode showed a stable metallic resistance behavior in this temperature range. There was no detectable photocurrent from YBCO layer. No poling is required until 350 °C for the PZT/YBCO heterostructure detector because the PZT film is oriented when grown onc‐axis oriented YBCO. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.