This article briefly summarizes the work of the author in the field of vacuum arc ion sources from the first version made in 1984, which generated metal ion beams of 20 cm diam with ion current up to 1 A at an accelerating voltage up to 130 kV, pulse duration of 300 &mgr;s, and repetition rate up to 50 Hz, for doing high dose implantation, to the creation in 1987 of the Technological Accelerator of Metal ions and Electron Kit (TAMEK) source which can produce, without switching off the source, the regimes of high‐dose implantation, ion deposition, ion‐beam mixing, and ion‐beam‐assisted deposition of the same metal ions, as well as the generation of electron beams with the same time and energy parameters and current up to 10 A. Sources with a vacuum arc current of several amperes (Iarc≳2 A,Ii≳0.1 A for a copper cathode) and milliseconds duration, and with a vacuum arc current up to 100 kA (Ii=1–10 kA) and microseconds duration, are described. Application of TAMEK sources for improving the properties of surface layers of metal and dielectric materials are also discussed.