A surface micromachining technique of LiNbO3 substrates, based on an improved implantation-assisted wet etching process, will be presented and discussed. 2.3 μm high relief structures with optical quality surfaces were fabricated on LiNbO3 by 5 MeV Cu ion implantation through an SU-8 10 μm thick photoresist masking layer patterned by a standard photolithographic process. The LiNbO3 regions amorphized by implantation were etched in a 49% HF aqueous solution at a rate of 100 nm/s exploiting the high differential ...