We argue on experimental and theoretical grounds that the spherical agglomeration of microparticles that we found is not due to moisture as claimed in the Comment by Tao et al. Rather it is the same phenomenon as the ball formation originally reported by Tao, except that our results demonstrate that it is not electric field induced and it is not related to superconductivity, contrary to the claims of Tao et al. We also argue on theoretical and experimental grounds that the electric field is not reduced when the electrodes in the capacitor are insulating rather than conducting, contrary to the claim in the Comment. Our new results give further evidence that Tao's original experiments were flawed.

• Received 28 January 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.87.056504