Fig. 2: Numerical simulation of the polarization-induced mirror symmetry breaking.

a Schematic illustration of the lateral optical force acting on an isotropic spherical particle semi-floating at the air-water interface. A 532 nm linearly polarized plane wave with a polarization angle α obliquely illuminates onto the particle at an incident angle θ. b–e The scattering near-field |E_z| in the yz-plane (x = 0) at polarization angles α = −45°, 90°, 45°and 0°, respectively. The white circles denote the spherical particle and the green arrows in the center denote the polarization orientations. The polystyrene particle radius is 500 nm and the incident angle is θ = 75°. f Solid-angular dependence of the far-field radiation. g Azimuthal dependence of the far-field in the yz-plane extracted from (f) for polarization angle α = ± 45°. h The degree of mirror symmetry breaking (D_MSB) dependence on the polarization angle α and incident angle θ. The top blue line shows a sin(2α) dependence of the D_MSB on polarization angle α at an incident angle of θ = 75°. The red line on the right shows the variation of D_MSB with the incident angle θ when the polarization angle α = −45°. i The ratio γ of the total scattered momentum in the y direction to the total scattered momentum in all directions as a function of the angle of incidence. j The dependence of the scattering cross-section C_sca of the semi-floating particle on the incident angle θ at the polarization angle α = 45°.