mezzo(-scale)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

The "Boing Boing" blog has an entry today with the term "mezzo-scale" :

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http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/01/wil_mccarthys_wonder.html
Hacking Matter is a science book about Wil's research on "quantum
dots" -- configurable "mezzoscale" (larger than nano) machines that
can be controlled with software to mimic the properties of different
elements.
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I see examples for this sense of "mezzo-" back to 2000, which is also
when the micro-manufacturing company Mezzo Technologies
(http://www.mezzotech.net/) was founded. "Mezzoscale" also turns up as
a variant of the meteorological term "mesoscale". And there are some
earlier cites for "mezzoscopic" as a variant of "mesoscopic".

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http://print.google.com/books?6DkVFxHPOCMC
Micro Total Analysis Systems 2000, Proceedings of the [Mu] Tas 2000
Symposium, p. 5
The CSPU used here, was fashioned by CAD and mezzo fabricated from Perspex by
computer controlled machining.
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http://www.cerncourier.com/main/article/42/8/22
_CERN Courier_ 42(8), Oct. 2002
And a careful examination shows that indeed it is possible to conceive
affordable mezzo-scale unique accelerator facilities that can produce
creative space-time patterns of particle and/or wave energy to address
specific issues that cannot be done otherwise.
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http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3618/is_200404/ai_n9397440
_Manufacturing Engineering_, Apr. 2004
Because micromanufacturing is a fairly new industry, definitions are
not yet firm. Three terms are commonly linked to these developments:
micro (one millionth of a unit), nano (one billionth of a unit) and
mezzo (generally bigger than micro). ... According to Jun Ni,
director, "Micro/mezzo-scale components inherent within all these
technologies have nominal feature sizes within the range of tens of
microns to several millimeters."
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http://accelconf.web.cern.ch/AccelConf/e04/PAPERS/THPKF084.PDF
Emerging Concepts, Technologies and Opportunities for Mezzo-Scale
Terahertz and Infrared Facilities. Swapan Chattopadhyay, et al.,
Proceedings of EPAC 2004.
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http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/080502.html
Modern Machine Shop, Aug. 2005
The emergence of mezzo- (very small) and nano- (microscopic)
manufacturing represents the sort of development that shops will leap
to in the quest to take the lead in productivity.
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--Ben Zimmer