High Energy Ion Implantation (HEII) of both medium and light mass ions has been successfully applied for the surface micromachining of single crystal LiNbO3 (LN) substrates. It has been demonstrated that the ion implantation process generates high differential etch rates in the LN implanted areas, when suitable implantation parameters, such as ion species, fluence and energy, are chosen. In particular, when traditional LN etching solutions are applied to suitably ion implanted regions, etch rates values up to three orders of magnitude higher than the typical etching rates of the virgin material, are registered. Further, the enhancement in the etching rate has been observed on x, y and z-cut single crystalline material, and, due to the physical nature of the implantation process, it is expected that it can be equivalently applied also to substrates with different crystallographic orientations. This technique, associated with …