The main mechanism involved in the Impulse Plasma Deposition (IPD) process is the nucleation on ions, which leads to the thermodynamic stabilization of high-temperature phase clusters. In common opinion, the mechanism of the IPD coating formation consists of the migration of these clusters on the substrate surface, their collisions with one another and then their incomplete coalescence.Our experiments confirm this mechanism, but we also consider an additional mechanism involved in the IPD coating formation, such that explains why the structures of the IPD coatings differ so much from one another.