The present invention provides a method of producing a multilayer barrier structure in a solid oxide cell stack, comprising the steps of: —providing a metal interconnect; —applying a first metal oxide layer on said metal interconnect; —applying a second metal oxide layer on top of said first metal oxide layer; —applying a third metal oxide layer on top of said second metal oxide layer; —forming a solid oxide cell stack comprising said metal interconnect having said metal oxide layers thereon; and —reacting the metal oxide in said first metal oxide layer with the metal of said metal interconnect during the SOC-stack initialization, and a solid oxide stack comprising an anode contact layer and support structure, an anode layer, an electrolyte layer, a cathode layer, a cathode contact layer, a metallic interconnect, and a multilayer barrier structure which is obtainable by the above method and through an initialization step, which is carried out under controlled conditions for atmosphere composition and current load, which depends on the layer composition facilitating the formation of the desired reaction products as a dense barrier layer without chromium species migrating to the air-electrode.