Photoacoustic microscopy of sandstone reservoirs

rocks
João Henrique Uliana Everton Lucas Oliveira Arthur de Araújo Ferreira
dept.of Physics Institute of Physics Institute of Physics
FFCLRP - University of São Paulo IFSC - University of São Paulo IFSC - University of São Paulo
Ribeirão Preto, Brazil São Carlos, Brazil São Carlos, Brazil
joaouliana@usp.br everton.lucas.oliveira@usp.br agdeaf@usp.br
Willian Andrighetto Trevizan Theo Zeferino Pavan Tito José Bonagamba
CENPES dept.of Physics Institute of Physics
Petrobrás FFCLRP - University of São Paulo IFSC - University of São Paulo
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Ribeirão Preto, Brazil São Carlos, Brazil
williantrevizan@petrobras.com.br theozp@usp.br tito@ifsc.usp.br
Antônio Adilton de Oliveira Carneiro
dept.of Physics
FFCLRP - University of São Paulo
Ribeirão Preto, Brazil
adilton@usp.br

Abstract— The porosity of materials is an important
parameter in several areas, ranging from industry to
biomedicine. For sandstone rocks, the mineral composition is
interesting in the oil industry and could be related to porosity
and permeability. For example, the amount of rigid grains,
such as quartz and feldspar, in sandstone composition can
support the overload pressure, preserving the primary pores.
Furthermore, the amount of feldspar could be positively
correlated with porosity. On the other hand, mixtures of
illite/smectite could reduce porosity. With the goal to
investigate alternative techniques to analyze porous media, this
work studies the application of photoacoustic microscopy in
sandstone rocks. Photoacoustic microscopy is based on the
photoacoustic effect, converting optical absorption into
acoustic waves, and carrying both mechanical and optical
information of the sample. Thus, the difference in optical
absorption among the different minerals in sandstones could
act as a contrast agent in the photoacoustic signal, allowing
differentiation. Photoacoustic microscopy images were
acquired in eleven sandstone rock samples to evaluate the
intensity and frequency of the photoacoustic signal. The signal
intensity was compared with photographs to analyze the
mineral composition, and the signal frequency was used in
morphology analysis.
Keywords— Sandstone Rocks, Photoacoustic Microscopy,
Porosity, Mineral Composition, Morphology.
I. INTRODUCTION
In the oil industry, porosity and permeability are very
important parameters for describing the flow capacity
through porous media and are closely related to reservoir
storage [1], [2]. The extraction of tight oil has become
important due to the depletion of conventional oil reservoirs
[3]. Thus, studying the mechanical characteristics, mineral
composition, and morphology of reservoir rocks is essential
to improve exploration techniques [3]. The mineral
composition of reservoir sandstone rocks is closely related
to their porosity and permeability. For example, rigid grains
of quartz and feldspar preserve the primary pores due to
their capacity to support overload pressure. However, there
is no clear relationship between porosity and the amount of
quartz, as this relationship could be affected by the presence
of precipitated silica [2]. The amount of feldspar is
positively correlated with porosity, and it is assumed that its
This work was supported by: Leopoldo Américo Miguez de Mello
Research and Development Center (CENPES/Petrobras, 2020/00010-0),
Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development
(CNPq, 308076/2018-4, 311224/2021-0) and Research Support Foundation
of the State of São Paulo (FAPESP, 2009/54880-6, 2018/16939-8,
2016/22374-8).
dissolution contributes to the total porosity [2]. In contrast,
the amount of illite/smectite mixture presents a negative
correlation with porosity due to the obstruction of the pores
[2]. These examples demonstrate the importance of studying
the mineral composition of sandstone rocks. However, the
mineral characterization of sandstone rocks involves the
utilization of complex and advanced methods such as
scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) [4], X-ray
diffraction [5], X-ray microtomography [6], and differential
thermal analysis [7]. With the goal of investigating
alternative methods to analyze porous media, this work
studies the application of photoacoustic microscopy (PAM)
in the analysis of optical and mechanical parameters of
sandstone rocks.
PAM is based on the photoacoustic (PA) effect, which
consists of the emission of acoustic waves due to the
absorption of light. PAM refers to a specific arrangement of
the PA technique in which the image is formed by
mechanical tracking of a focused ultrasound transducer or
by light focusing [8]. In this configuration, PAM is able to
achieve a resolution on the order of micrometers and has
been primarily used in biomedical applications for imaging
from organelles and cells [9] to blood vessels [8]. The major
contrast mechanism in PA techniques is the optical
absorption coefficient, which in biomedical applications
could be oxy/deoxy-hemoglobin [10]. Similarly, it is
possible to consider that the optical characteristics of
sandstone rocks could be dependent on their mineral
composition [11], temperature exposure [7], and amount of
metal oxides [12]. Thus, the application of PAM in
sandstone rocks is proposed with the goal to analyze the PA
signal as a function of parameters of interest, such as
mineral composition, pore dimensions, and porosity.
Additionally, PA wave has a broadband ranging from
kHz to MHz [13], [14]. The power spectrum of the PA
signal could be influenced by the optical properties of
sandstones, such as optical scattering [15], as well as by
mechanical and thermal parameters [16], [17]. Thus,
analyzing both the intensity and frequency of the PA signal
in PAM images could contribute to the understanding of the
mechanical and optical properties of sandstone rocks.
II. MATERIALS AND METHODS
A. Photoacoustic microscopy setup
PAM setup was composed of a Nd:YAG laser system
(Brio, Quantel, France) that emits laser pulses with a
wavelength of 532 nm, a duration of 5 ns, a pulse repetition
frequency of 20 Hz, and a maximum energy of 47.5 mJ.
Here, the output energy was set to 1.25% of the maximum
energy, which is around 0.6 mJ. A beamsplitter was used to
separate the laser beam in a proportion of 1/9 for measuring
the energy using an immersion transducer (U8517028,
1MHZ, Olympus, Tokyo, Japan) [18]. The most energetic
laser beam is collimated and redirected to a lens with a focal
distance of 20.0 cm. The focused light passes through a
hollow ultrasound transducer (Rhoe, 5613, 2.25 MHz/13
mm, unfocused, 7068IH) and hits the sample. The samples
were attached to a three-dimensional axes stage (HSC-103,
Sigmakoki, Tokyo, Japan) that has a maximum resolution of
15 μm. The acquisition of the PA signal was done by an
oscilloscope (PCI-5112, National Instruments, Austin,
Texas, USA). Fig. 1 illustrates the PAM setup.
Fig. 1. PAM setup
B. Characterization of photoacoustic microscopy system
The characterization of the developed system consisted
of acquiring a PAM image of a hair sample. The diameter of
the hair was measured using a micrometer, and the result is
around 60 μm. The PAM image was acquired with a tracking
step of 15 μm (limit of the three-dimensional axes stage) in a
region of 0.9 × 0.9 mm. The system resolution was
calculated by the full width half maximum (FWHM) of the
PA signal, resulting in (107 ± 10) μm. Fig. 2 shows the
resolution of the PAM system.
Fig. 2. PAM system resolution. (a) PAM image of the hair and (b) PA signal
along y axis.
C. Photographs of sandstone rocks
For comparison, photographs of the sandstone rocks
were taken. A convergent lens with a focal distance of 15.0
cm was placed above the camera lens of a cellphone (K51S,
LG, Seoul, South Korea) fixed on the three-dimensional
axes stage to couple the focus of the lens and cellphone’s
camera. The spatial resolution of the photographs was
calculated using the edge profile and edge derivative [19],
resulting in a spatial resolution of (54 ± 12) μm.
D. Photoacoustic microscopy of sandstone rocks
PAM images of sandstone rock samples were acquired
individually in a region of 12.0 × 12.0 mm with a tracking
step of 50 μm. The laser pulse energy was measured at each
tracking position and stored in a matrix to correct energy
fluctuations in PAM images. The analysis of PAM intensity
was executed using the maximum intensity projection and k-
means clustering [20], while the analysis of PAM frequency
was done using the mean frequency [21] of power spectrum
at each tracking position. A description of sandstone rock
samples is presented in Table 1.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The study of sandstone rocks using PAM images was
performed by analyzing the intensity and frequency of the
PA signal. An initial approach consisted of comparing PAM
images and photographs to investigate optical absorption and
reflection. This preliminary study does not have the
mineralogy data of the samples, which could be provided by
SEM images, similar to what was done by Golab et al. [6].
Despite this, it is admitted that different minerals will act as
contrast agents in PAM images and photographs.
A. Analysis on intensity of photoacoustic signal
The comparison between PAM images and photographs
of sandstone rocks could provide a perspective on the
optical characteristics of the samples. The intensity of the
pixels in PAM images carries information about the optical
absorption of light with a wavelength of 532 nm, while the
photographs provide information about optical reflection in
the visible spectrum. Fig. 3 shows the PAM images, and the
photographs of all the sandstone rocks.
Fig. 3. PAM images and photographs of sandstone rock samples (Table 1).
By converting the RGB channels of the photograph into
grayscale values, it is possible to compare the information of
optical reflection with optical absorption in PAM images.
For this task, the complement of the grayscale photographs
is taken.
Corregistering PAM images and grayscale complement
photographs, it is observed that the bright and dark regions
are similar. The similarity between PAM images and
photographs is calculated using the structural similarity
index [22]. Fig. 5 shows an example for BB sandstone.
 signal could be affected by the morphological characteristics
of sandstone rocks. Fig. 7 shows the mean frequency of the
PA signal at each tracking position for all sandstone rocks.

Fig. 5. PAM image, complement image of grayscale photograph, and

structural similarity index map of BB sandstone. The arrows indicate
locations of low similarity values.

The mean value of the structural similarity index map is

0.73. However, it is interesting to observe the regions with
low similarity (green/black arrows). The arrows (1) show
regions with low PAM intensity (absorption) and also low Fig. 7. Projection of mean frequency of PA signal for the sandstone rocks.
values in photographs (reflection). One hypothesis for this is The projection of the mean frequency of the PA signal
that the illumination angle when the photograph was taken shows characteristics of sandstone rocks that are not so
generated a shadow in this region. This kind of issue is not evident when observing just the PA intensity. The sandstone
present in the PAM image, as the illumination is always rocks with lower porosity show more homogeneous
normal. On the other hand, the arrows (2) show a region projections, with lower dispersion of frequency and higher
with high absorption in the PAM image and high reflection frequencies. The sandstone rocks with higher porosity
in the photograph. In this case, the PAM technique could present more heterogeneous projections, with high
present the advantage of being sensitive to the light dispersion and lower frequencies. This can be better
absorption of minerals in depth. This hypothesis is based on visualized by the histogram of frequency distribution in Fig.
the light penetration in porous media, studied by Wang X. et 7. Calculating the average value of frequency distribution is
al. [23], where the light can reach depths on the order of observed a correlation with the dimensions of the pores in
millimeters in bone samples. The mean structural similarity the sandstone rocks.
index of the sandstones is presented in Table 1. In general,
the similarity index between PAM images and photographs
have similar values, demonstrating the relationship between
optical absorption and optical reflection. Once the PA signal
data are similar to the photograph values, it is possible to
perform a clustering processing by k-means method [22] to
estimate the percentage of regions with similar intensity
values in the sandstone rocks.

Fig. 6. k-means segmentation of PAM images and photographs for the BB

sandstone sample.

The segmentation of PAM images and photographs is

similar. This can be observed through the value of Lin’s
concordance coefficient ( = 0.972) [24], [25]. By
relating the intensity of the PA signal with the values in
photographs, it is possible to delimit regions that could
potentially be related to mineral composition.

B. Analysis on frequency of photoacoustic signal

The analysis of the frequency of the PA signal could
reveal information about the morphology of the samples,
including the average value of the radius of pores and the
porosity percentage. The frequency spectrum of the
generated PA signal can be affected by the type of material
[14] and by mechanical and thermal properties [16], [17]. In
general, acoustic attenuation depends on the frequency of
the acoustic wave [26] and is also related to the porosity of
the material [27]. Thus, the frequency components of the PA
Fig. 8. Average value, standard deviation and amplitude of frequency
distribution as a function of sample porosity and average radius of the
pores.
The values of the Spearman correlation coefficient ( )
and the determination coefficient (R²) shows that the
average radius of the pores [28] could exercise more
influence in the mean frequency of PA signal
( = − 0.81 and R² = 0.80) than the influence of porosity
percentage ( = − 0,41 and R² = 0,26). An example of this is
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