Method to reduce light propagation losses in optical glasses and optical waveguide fabricated by same

The present invention provides a method of annealing optical glass layers, said method comprising the step of heating glass layers having an area greater than 0.01 cm2 to a temperature of between about 350 deg. C. and 1000 deg. C. in less than 10 minutes. The upper limit of the glass area that can be treated is limited only by the size of the quartz chamber. Current state-of-the-art chambers can accomodate glass areas of about 0.01 cm2 to about 324 cm2. According to another aspect of the invention, there is also provided an optical waveguide glass layer, treated according to the method of this invention, disposed on an integrated optical device.