In this work, erbium, and erbium and ytterbium co-doped YVO4 waveguiding thin films were deposited on amorphous SiO2 substrates by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and ultraviolet-assisted pulsed laser deposition (UVPLD). The influence of the deposition technique on the structure, morphology, and optical properties of the films was investigated. At lower dopant concentrations the films prepared by UVPLD show better crystallinity and optical properties. All the samples show preferred orientation of the (001) zone axes parallel to the substrate surface. The polycrystalline samples show difference in the refractive indexes Delta n (Delta n = n(TE) - n(TM)) for the TE and TM polarizations. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.