Ion implantation with MeV4He+ions has been used by several workers to fabricate planar optical waveguides in LiNbO3. The process of fabrication of these waveguides includes a 30 min furnace anneal in oxygen to remove the radiation damage from the guiding layer and to replace oxygen lost during implantation. In this work a transient anneal schedule on LiNbO3was followed. The annealing time is reduced and the attenuation of these waveguides found to be an order of magnitude lower than identical waveguides annealed by conventional methods. Waveguides implanted with single energy ions with losses as low as 0.2 dB/cm at 0.633 μm have been produced.