The surface of the active layer of GaAs photocathode must reach the atomically clean surface before Cs-O activeness. The most effective method, which is used quite often, is the high-temperature thermal cleaning. It is very difficult to measure the surface temperature of a photocathode precisely in a vacuum system during the thermal cleaning. In this paper, we use ANSYS program to analyse GaAs photocathode during the thermal cleaning, with the temperature distribution on the photocathode surface obtained. We also discuss quantum efficiency distribution with the temperature distribution on the photocathode surface.