1. A method for measuring at least one element of a susceptibility tensor of at least one order pertaining to a nanoparticle: a. illuminating the nanoparticle via a first vector beam shaper with an illuminating electromagnetic wave; b. coherently detecting light scattered by the nanoparticle and propagated through a vector analyzer to generate a detected signal, wherein the vector analyzer is a vector beam shaper; c. employing a computer system to perform an inversion of the detected signal based on a comparison of the detected signal to data predicted from a forward scattering model; and d. estimating at least one element of at least one order of the susceptibility, based on the inversion.