Method, materials, and structures for noble metal electrode contacts to silicon

A layered structure is described incorporating a noble metal silicide, a noble metal and an oxygen-rich barrier layer between the noble metal silicide and noble metal. A silicon-contributing substrate may also be present in addition to or without the noble metal silicide. The invention overcomes a problem in fabricating capacitors containing high-epsilon dielectric materials or ferroelectric memory elements containing ferroelectric material, namely that silicon diffuses through the electrode in one direction and oxygen diffuses through the electrode in the other direction during the high temperature (400-700 DEG C.) deposition and processing of the dielectric.