A quest for the universal atomic radii

Atomic radius is an important periodic descriptor used in understanding a variety of physico-chemical and bio-chemical processes. Numerous scales are suggested to define atomic radii. The aim of the current study is to find out the most reliable and universal scale among different (experimental and theoretical) scales of radii. For this, we have used different types of radii to compute some size-dependent physico-chemical atomic descriptors, i.e. electronegativity, global hardness, polarizability, and a real-world molecular descriptor, i.e. internuclear bond distance for some diatomic molecules. The computed properties are compared with available experimental values. Important periodic trends and the presence of relativistic effects are also verified for each set of atomic radii. This comparative study is valuable to get an idea about the most effective atomic radii.