Two versions of vacuum arc sources for producing accelerated ion beams and plasma flows are described. The sources are distinguished by use of a dc vacuum arc discharge for plasma generation on the basis of a simple linear or coaxial plasma gun with extended large area (70 300 and 1500 cm(2)) cathodes and microparticle filtering system. The dc vacuum arc discharge combined with the diode extraction system enables us to use the single source for dc mode of plasma flow formation and repetitively pulsed mode of ion beam generation. Experimental and numerical results are presented on the repetitively pulsed accelerated ion beam formation in the vacuum arc sources with large area cathodes. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0034-6748(00)56702-1].