How Close Are We to Creating a Lightsaber?

Lightsabers might be elegant weapons for a more civilized age, but today, they only exist in the world of fiction. Could we use modern technology to create the most famous movie weapon of all time?
May the Fourth be with you!
Find Dr. Patrick Johnson's book, The Physics of Star Wars, here:
Check out Dr. Don Lincoln's YouTube videos for Fermilab here:
How Close Are We? Season 3 -
Read More:
The Science of Star Wars Weaponry
"If we consider the beam to be plasma, there is a different set of concerns. A well-designed electromagnetic field could, in principle, contain a plasma to a size of about 3 feet (maybe by sending the plasma in a highly elliptical path to create roughly the shape of a cylinder)."
Is a Real Lightsaber Possible? Science Offers a New Hope
"What technology could possibly yield the lightsaber? With that desire, came the first attempts to reverse-engineer the device. Reverse engineering, in this context, is thinking about how to do it…not actually building one. However, this research about clumping photons made the rounds a while ago."
Scientists create never-before-seen form of matter
"Harvard and MIT scientists are challenging the conventional wisdom about light, and they didn't need to go to a galaxy far, far away to do it."
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