This work explores the applicability of photothermal radiometry for the temperature measurement of semiconductors. Although this technique has been used to measure the surface temperature of metals, additional considerations must be given for temperature measurement of semiconductors due to electron-hole pair generation by the laser. Criteria for the applicability of photothermal radiometry to temperature measurement of semiconductors are established in this work and experimental results are presented for temperature measurement of a silicon sample in a radiation environment. This study demonstrates that photothermal radiometry can be applied to the temperature measurement of heavily-doped samples, but care must be taken to minimize the effect of electron-hole pair generation by choosing appropriate experimental conditions.