A small‐area high‐Tcsuperconducting bolometer with a dense YBCO meander wire on a (100) Zr(Y)O2substrate has been tested at &lgr;=1.5 &mgr;m using a diode laser as the radiation source. The infrared power absorbed by the bolometer was calibrated using a dc infrared substitution method. Responsivities of hundreds of V/W with a millisecond response time were obtained at a temperature of 86.5 K in the modulation frequency range of 10–3000 Hz. A minimum noise equivalent power of 6×10−11W/Hz1/2was measured at 1000 Hz. The experimental results are compared with those obtained from a thermal analysis of the substrate‐supported microbolometer. No nonbolometric effect was distinguished.