Ion beam sputtering is presently used to deposit films from single phase YBa2Cu3O7−&dgr;targets. Generally, Ar+ion beams (∼1500 eV) produced by Kaufman‐type ion sources are used for this purpose. It has been observed that these ion beams induce compositional and morphological changes on the polycrystalline ceramic target surface, which results in the composition of sputtered flux displaying a time‐dependent behavior. This in turn may lead to undesirably long times for reaching steady state conditions in the sputtering process.From the literature, it appears that only incomplete studies of these effects have been performed during experiments directed mainly at producing and characterizing high Tc films.Therefore, the stuides reported in this paper have been directed at examining in some detail the effects mentioned above as a function of two important parameters, i.e., ion beam energy and dose deposited in the targets during the sputtering process.The analysis techniques used to characterize the target changes include electron microscopy scanning Auger microprobe, and X‐ray diffraction techniques. Correlations between target initial conditions and ion‐induced changes and film compositions are discussed.The results indicate copper depletion in the sputtered targets and copper enrichment in the deposited films. The sputter conditions play a critical role in determining the surface topography evolution. No correlations between surface microstructure and film compositions were observed.