Energetic ion bombardment of metal and ceramic deposits during deposition is shown to affect the morphology, structure, stochiometry, and physical properties of the resulting deposit. The bombardment of the growing deposit tends to eliminate the columnar growth morphology normally encountered in thick-crystalline deposits. Generally, in metals it is found that internal stress, density, and gas content increase with increasing ion bombardment energy, but in some cases there is a decrease at high energies, possibly due to heating. In the case of sputter-deposited glass films, it is found that ion bombardment affects the stoichiometry, the coefficient of thermal expansion, and the strain point of the glass. Specific data are presented for thick (> 1 μ) rf sputter-deposited Corning 1720 glass and also sputter-deposited and electron-beam ion-plated chromium deposits with both a dc and a rf substrate bias.