Charge Density Research – Past, Present and Future Challenges for Crystallography

Claude LECOMTE

CRM2 Laboratory, Université de Lorraine/CNRS, Nancy, France

http://www.crystallography.fr

Email: claude.lecomte@univ-lorraine.fr

 This  lecture will first  present a short history of the charge, spin and momentum  density research since the very beginning ( Debye and Hartree ) until now with applications to material science, chemical bonding, intermolecular interactions and large molecules  using  experimental or theoretical multipolar data bases . It will be shown how the field has evolved from electron density deformation maps ( X-N or X-X) for centrosymmetric crystals to total density modelling and related applications (electrostatic potential , topology of electron density) for any type of  good quality crystals .