1997/01/01 by Jialong Liu, Suyun Niu, Guoliang Li +5 · 3 citations
Computer Science · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · Mathematics · #Advanced Banach Space Theory #Advanced Topology and Set Theory #Baire category theorem #Baire measure #Baire space #Composite material #Computability, Logic, AI Algorithms #Computer science #Countable set #Discrete mathematics #Distortion (music) #Enhanced Oil Recovery Techniques #Feature (linguistics) #Geophysical and Geoelectrical Methods #Hydrocarbon exploration and reservoir analysis #Materials science #Mathematics #Muscovite #Nanoparticle #Nanoprobe #Nanotechnology #Optics #Optoelectronics #Physics #Porosity #Pure mathematics #Second-countable space #Space (punctuation) #Tomography
paper · open access · doi:10.1111/jmi.13001
published in Journal of Microscopy 282(3), 258-266 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 1997/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
Oil and natural gas prospecting requires precise pore characterisation of insulating rock samples, which involves severe charging problems in the state-of-art FIB-SEM tomography, such as overexposure, drift and distortion. For weak cemented samples with very poor conductivity, the conventional ways such as decreasing accelerating voltage or current as well as coating a thin layer of carbon or gold fail to eliminate all the detrimental effect, leading to image distortion in the form of lateral shift and longitudinal stretching. A new nanoprobe-assisted method is explored in FIB-SEM tomography to address this problem and improve image quality. To be specific, a metallic nanoprobe is induced and attached on the sample surface to create an express path for the export of excess electrons near the region of interest, which effectively removes distortion and drift when imaging. Two adjacent areas were characterised and reconstructed into 3D digital models by FIB-SEM tomography with nanoprobe-assisted method applied to one region only. The lateral shift creates zigzag feature for distorted region and the longitudinal stretching of undistorted object can reach 14%. Average pore size of distorted region is larger than that of the undistorted region, however considering the longitudinal stretching, the average pore size of distorted region can be corrected to the same level as the undistorted region. The systematic error caused by distortion for poorly conductive porous rock is hazardous for digital rock physics analysis. Therefore, the nanoprobe-assisted FIB-SEM tomography should be regarded as a one of the optional and feasible procedures in case decreasing accelerating voltage or current as well as coating a thin layer of conductive material does not work.