On the accuracy and precision of X-ray and neutron diffraction results as a function of resolution and the electron...

X-ray diffraction is the main source of three-dimensional structural information. In total, more than 1.5 million crystal structures have been refined and deposited in structural databanks (PDB, CSD and ICSD) to date. Almost 99.7% of them were obtained by approximating atoms as spheres within the independent atom model (IAM) introduced over a century ago. In this study, X-ray datasets for single crystals of hydrated α-oxalic acid were refined using several alternative electron density models that abandon the crude spherical approximation: the multipole model (MM), the transferable aspherical atom model (TAAM) and the Hirshfeld atom refinement (HAR) model as a function of the resolution of X-ray data. The aspherical models (MM, TAAM, HAR) give far more accurate and precise single-crystal X-ray results than IAM, sometimes identical to results obtained from neutron diffraction and at low resolution. Hence, aspherical approaches open new routes for improving existing structural information collected over the last century.