ABC News | 17 December 2015
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Researchers say the concept of a lightsaber* would not work in reality but lasers could be used to create something vaguely similar to the famous Jedi sword. Physicists at the University of Queensland (UQ) are exploring the possibility of creating real-life lightsabers in the wake of the much anticipated instalment of the seventh Star Wars film.
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Research physicist Martin Ringbaue said a real lightsaber would not work 
because the beams of light would simply pass through each other.
“The biggest problem with the lightsaber is that light doesn’t just stop at the end,” Mr Ringbaue said.
“You can’t just make a laser stop without it hitting something solid or being reflected back on itself with a mirror.”
He said a real-life lightsaber would be useless in a battle against the dark side.
“Light doesn’t like to interact with itself, so two beams of light would actually pass through each other, which wouldn’t be very useful in a fight,” Mr Ringbaue said.
A new hope for real lightsabers
But research physicist James Bennett said lasers and plasma could be used to turn the fictional weapon into a reality.
“You can make something that is vaguely like a lightsaber,” Mr Bennett said.
“If you read the nerdy story behind Star Wars, it’s not light in a lightsaber, it’s actually plasma which is contained in a loop that feeds back into itself.
“We can contain plasmas and it’s something we have been doing for decades now.”
Mr Bennett said it was possible to create plasma with lasers.
“Currently, we have very powerful industrial lasers that can cut through steel, used, for example, in car manufacturing,” Mr Ringbauer said.
However, Mr Ringbauer said he did not think technology was in reach of creating lightsabers in this world.
*In Australian English that would be lightsabre, but what the heck, the Starwars people “invented” the things and own the spelling.