We present a review of our research activities concerning the proton exchange technique on lithiumniobate and lithium tantalate for integrated lasers and nonlinear frequency converters. In the first partwe present the material characterizations that allowed us to establish the phase diagram of the protonexchanged layers on both crystals. In the second part we show how the knowledge of these phasediagrams allows us to understand and handle the problem of the reduction of the excited-state lifetimeof the rare-earth ions in Nd- and Er-doped crystals. In the third part, we describe the influence of thedifferent proton exchange processes on the nonlinearity and the domain structure of periodicallypoled crystals, which leads us to recommend the use of waveguides fabricated using low-aciditymelts, which preserves both the nonlinear coefficient and the domain structure.
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