Building a real lightsaber...?

Question

I've got access to some pretty high-tech equipment, and was wondering if electrically charged plasma gas combined with a photon pulse laser could create a real life lightsaber? Any other suggestions on how to create a lightsaber?

Answer 1

there are some problems i can think of right now.

first, of course if it's made of laser, how do you limit the length of the ray to, say 3 feet or 5 feet long? as we know light rays keep on traveling until it's blocked by non light-permissible substance such as wall or concrete etc. if the ray is powerful enough, like high-power laser, it would probably force its way through obstacles, but still i don't think we can limit its length. I don't know much about 'charged plasma gas' though.

second, if the saber is strong enough to cut through steel, concrete, etc with ease like in the movie, it must have very high power output. light ray or plasma gas with power this high should radiates infra red radiation or heat. in this case, this mean A LOT of heat. we can get burn injury just standing near the saber, let along holding its hilt. well, perhaps the hilt can be made from super-isolator (as opposed to super-conductor, dunno if there's such thing as super-isolator) that could not only withstand the heat but isolates the heat so we wouldn't get burned by grapping it. but still we'd get burn injury by waving it too close to our body, even without touching the ray of the saber.

third, how do we find the power supply that's powerful enough to supply the enermous amount of energy required, yet small enough to fit it in the hilt? I don't think current day batteries would do the job. maybe a small nuclear reaction? but nuclear reaction also required energy (force, heat, or electricity) injected to the reactan before it can react. I think George Lucas considered this problem, thus he came out with the idea of 'energy crystals' which supposedly hold an enermous energy despite of the small size.

well, I suppose somebody could eventually build a real lightsaber in a safe, controlled environment such as a good physics lab. but we're still a long way to seeing people walking around with lightsabers on their waist or hanging on their belt.

Answer 2

Yeah that's basically what you need, but remember, the lightsaber MUST be handmade. You can't just mass produce lightsabers in a factory or whatever.

Don't forget the power crystal that goes inside the blade like a permanent battery. You can find those in the planet Russan.

wikipedia has an excellent article on lightsabers, and about the internal aspects of a lightsaber.

Answer 3

I've heard something about that being possible and that somebody working for Lucas has actually done it. I understand that the main difficulty they had to overcome was how to make the plasma beam cascade so that the lenght of the lightsaber could be controlled. Other than that I don't know anything, but it would be a pretty handy tool. Definitely not one to let your kids play with.

Answer 4

I like your question and wished I had the answer, but it doesn't exist. It is still impossible to control the beam's propagation distance.

The closest thing you'll find is a controllable plasma beam made in a tube of argon and neon. The tube only disappears in the dark :)

Answer 5

i dont think that the plasma would work because its just kinda like a fluidy substance...all a lightsaber seems to be is a highly concentrated lazer with a limited range...so maybe make something that has a high power lazer with only a limited amount of energy...

Answer 6

i always thought that if you had a mirror fixed on the end of a rod, several lazer beams could hit the mirriors, reflect back, hit another set of mirrors, and so on... untill it created a small field of laser light. but that wouldn't allow you to use the tip...