We demonstrate low-loss photonic-crystal (PC) waveguides realized in InP by Ar/Cl-2 based chemically assisted ion,beam etching. The waveguides are obtained as line defects in a triangular lattice of holes etched through a three-layer InP/GaInAsP/InP heterostructure. By optimizing the etching parameters so that the physical and the chemical components are balanced we succeed in obtaining holes deeper than 2 mum even for a hole diameter as small as 220 nm. The quality of the PCs etched by two different process conditions is compared by using the shape and the position of one of the mode gaps as an assessment tool;The measured transmissions spectra indicate that the PC waveguides etched with an optimized process exhibit losses smaller than 1 dB/100 mum. This is to date the lowest loss value reported for PC waveguides in semiconductor heterostructures at optical communication wavelengths. (C) 2003 American Vacuum Society. [DOI: 10.1116/1.1563257].