We present evidence in this study that the moving species under ion mixing conditions are affected by the implantation damage distribution in the sample. This observation holds for metal‐semiconductor, metal‐metal, and semiconductor‐semiconductor systems. The direction of thermal annealing atomic transport appears to play a role in ion mixing as well. When these two factors are in the same direction, only one dominant moving species is observed. When these two factors are in opposite directions, both constituents can contribute to the atomic transport in ion mixing.