Planar germanosilicate thin film glasses grown by flame hydrolysis technique on silica substrate have been implanted at 5 MeV with silicon ions to a dose of 1014 ions/cm2. Samples were subsequently exposed to a series of KrF (5 eV) and ArF (6.4 eV) excimer laser irradiation. Optical absorption and electron spin resonance were measured before and after each series of irradiation. We report an important refractive index change that can be correlated with the photobleaching of the ion implantation induced absorption bands.