spectral region (see Fig. \[fig:fig5\](c-d) bottom, $550\,\text{nm} \lesssim \lambda \lesssim 600\,\text{nm}$). We remark that the assumption of spectrally sharp, guided modes between the NW side facets is also in agreement with former studies on scattering from rectangular dielectric NWs.[@fan_optical_2014; @landreman_fabry-perot_2016]

Conclusions
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In conclusion, we demonstrated strongly directional light scattering from symmetric an asymmetric dielectric nanowires at optical frequencies. We derived the conditions for exclusive forward or backward scattering in cylindrical nanowires from Mie theory and showed both theoretically and experimentally that anisotropic scattering can be obtained from individual silicon nanowires. Unlike 0D-structures, directionality is a result of interference between different orders of either transverse electric or -magnetic modes. Also, compared to 0D nano-particles the incident light polarization offers an additional degree of freedom in nanowires – apart from material and geometry variations. Besides being able to adjust the scattering intensity, the directionality and the spectral width of the resonances by varying the NW width, it is for example possible to switch between FW and BW scattering simply by rotating the polarization of the incident light. Finally we showed that by breaking the symmetry of cylindrical nanowires and using rectangular cross sections instead, Fano-like resonances occur, leading to spectrally very 