Applied to transition metal oxides and silicate and aluminate alloys, a classification scheme that separates non-crystalline dielectrics into three groups with different amorphous morphologies, demonstrates a direct correlation between stability against crystallization and oxygen atom coordination. It also provides a local bonding model for molecular orbital (MO), calculations that are based on the coordination and symmetry of transition metal atoms and the orbital energies of their oxygen neighbors. These calculations provide important insights into the electronic structure of transition metal dielectrics, e.g. the role of anti-bonding d-states in determining conduction band offset energies with respect to Si. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.