Abstract We report the design, fabrication and optical characterization of silicon nanophotonic waveguides on an erbium doped crystal. The silicon waveguide allows for efficient optical addressing of erbium ions embedded near the crystal surface. We employed the transfer printing method to assemble the heterogeneous photonic structure in a simple pick-and-place manner. We observed coupling of the emission from erbium ions into the waveguide in the telecommunication wavelength band. The developed methodology opens the way to functional hybrid quantum devices mediating between photons, electrons and phonons.