Reply to the ‘Comment on “Design and circuit simulation of nanoscale vacuum channel transistors”’ by R. Forbes, Nanoscale Adv., 2020, 2, DOI: 10.1039/D0NA00687D

Prof. Forbes takes a critical view of our paper on nanoscale vacuum channel transistors (NVCTs), arguing mainly about the weaknesses in the theory of field electron emission. On the one hand, we agree with the theoretical derivation details given by Prof. Forbes, and we would correct the “simplified formula” accordingly (eqn (2)–(5)). On the other hand, the main part of our work focuses on the simulation results of structural parameters and circuit behavior, which is not involved with eqn (2)–(5). Thus, the reported results and conclusions remain reliable.