The main criticism raised in the preceding Comment concerns our suggestion that sharp conduction peaks in Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_{8+}$${}_{\delta }$ mesas, along with absent dip-hump features, may, in general, be a result of self-heating. The author points to the variety of experimental configurations, matrix-element effects, and doping dependencies that might allow a diversity of conductance spectra. We argue that numerous mesa studies (with fixed matrix elements) firmly establish the systematic development of sharp conductance peaks with increased self-heating, and thus, the issue of nonuniversality of tunneling characteristics is not relevant. The author mentions a number of studies that show that the mesa is superconducting near the conductance peak voltage. This is not in dispute and indicates a misinterpretation of our analysis that is clarified here. To address further comments on the technical details of our heating model, we reiterate that our conclusions are independent of our model but rather are based solely on experimental data that are not in dispute.

• Received 3 June 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.84.136502