  It is generally believed that when a single metallic nanowire is sufficiently
small, it scatters like a point electric dipole. We show theoretically when a
metallic nanowire is placed inside specially designed beams, the non-negligible
magnetic dipole contribution along with the electric dipole resonance can lead
to unidirectional scattering in the far-field, fulfilling Kerker's condition.
Remarkably, this far-field unidirectional scattering encodes information that
is highly dependent on the nanowire's deflection at a scale much smaller than
the wavelength. The special role of small but non-negligible magnetic response
and plasmonic resonance are highlighted for this extreme sensitivity as
compared with the dielectric counterpart. Effects such as scattering efficiency
and shape of the nanowire's cross section are also discussed.

Optics