Glow discharge atomic emission spectroscopic analysis technology can analyze and characterize the surface of metal samples layer by layer along the depth direction, and the glow discharge emission source has the advantages of a fast sputtering rate, high analysis efficiency, and large-area sputtering. In addition, the glow discharge plasma energy is low. The layer-by-layer sputtering excitation process of the material will not cause changes in the structure of the material itself. The sample preparation can be achieved layer by layer along the sample depth direction. Combining a glow discharge sputtering source with a scanning electron microscope, spectral analysis, and detection instrument can be used as an effective means for high-through put quantitative characterization of metal materials. It is necessary to perform glow discharge plasma sputtering on the material surface under multi-size and large-area sputtering conditions. Therefore, based on the traditional glow sputtering source, this paper improves the structure of the anode cylinder, designs four kinds of large-diameter anodes with diameters of 15, 20, 30, and 40 mm respectively, and carries out COMSOL numerical simulation and actual study on sputtering effect. Large-size sputtering surface can obtain richer information on the surface of the material. However, under the same sputtering conditions, the increase of the anode diameter will also lead to a decrease in the sputtering rate, a decrease in the ionization rate of the central area of the sputtering surface, and affect the sputtering uniformity, pit flatness, and other issues. To solve these problems, an auxiliary anode structure that can be applied to a large-aperture DC glow discharge sputtering source is designed in this paper. Changing the electric field distribution in the discharge space regulates the plasma distribution in the discharge space, and the electron ionization rate in the central area of the anode is enhanced. In this paper, the design principle of the auxiliary anode structure is explained in detail, and the numerical simulation research and the actual sputtering effect comparison experiment are carried out on the traditional anode cylinder and the auxiliary anode. The results show that the addition of auxiliary anodes has a significant effect on the sputtering rate of large-diameter sputtering sources. The sputtering rate of sources with an anode diameter of 30mm is increased by 33%~48%, and the sputtering rate of sputtering sources with an anode diameter of 40mm is increased by 34%~57%. The sputtering excitation of copper samples was carried out using a large-aperture auxiliary anode sputtering source, and the sputtering crater morphology was tested by optical coherence tomography (OCT). The results show that adding an auxiliary anode can effectively improve the sputtering uniformity and flatness of the sputtering crater. The actual measurement data are given in this paper.