Darth Vader's lightsaber

The lightsaber incorporated a dual-phase function, which allowed for the manual manipulation and adjustment of the blade's length during combat. The weapon was designed with a black-ridged handgrip, a black power cell chamber, a beveled emitter shroud, a pair of dual-phase focusing crystals, a high-output diatium power cell, and standard power and length adjustment knobs. Vader consistently refined and improved his lightsaber to optimize its blade power and stability. Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin noted that Vader genuinely cared about the lightsaber, making it the sole object towards which the Sith Lord ever displayed any emotion, in Tarkin's observation.

Due to Vader's modifications to his lightsaber over the years, its external appearance underwent slight alterations (although its design was primarily based on his first Jedi lightsaber). Vader seemingly experimented with a rounded emitter shroud, similar to his second Jedi weapon. As a Dark Lord of the Sith, Vader frequently employed his lightsaber in confrontations with Jedi, but also against other adversaries, even when he occasionally favored using the Force to eliminate less significant targets. Much like his Jedi lightsaber, Vader's lightsaber was capable of functioning underwater.

Shortly after the formation of the Galactic Empire, the Sith Lord Darth Vader was given the task by his master, Darth Sidious, to kill a Jedi and then obtain their kyber crystal to power a new Sith lightsaber. Vader proceeded to the Jedi outpost known as Brighthome, where he briefly utilized a green lightsaber from the wall to eliminate the majority of the clone troopers. He tracked Jedi Master Kirak Infil'a to the river moon of Al'doleem and confronted him. Vader eventually killed the Jedi Master and took possession of his curved-hilt lightsaber. He then journeyed to Mustafar, where he bled the lightsaber's crystal, transforming its color from green to red. Vader utilized Kirak Infil'a's lightsaber alongside his corrupted, red kyber crystal in several conflicts, such as when he briefly fought the Grand Inquisitor and Jocasta Nu within the former Jedi Temple.

He also wielded the hilt during a lesson with Darth Sidious in the Works, where Sidious used his remaining lightsaber to demonstrate that the lightsaber was nothing more than a symbol for the true power that anyone who stood against the dark side would face. Infil'a's hilt was destroyed on Cabarria by a family of mercenaries contracted to assassinate Vader, when the hilt shattered due to the combined pressure of a tractor rifle and Vader's Force-assisted retrieval. Vader then used the Ninth Sister's lightsaber to deal with the bounty hunters. The destruction of Infil'a's hilt prompted Vader to construct a hilt of his own design. During his return journey to Coruscant, Vader fashioned a new hilt for his crystal while aboard his personal starship. Vader subsequently presented the weapon to Sidious, who expressed his approval of his apprentice's new weapon.

Approximately one year after the Empire's rise, Vader was dispatched to locate and eliminate a Jedi who was in hiding on the Outer Rim ocean planet of Mon Cala. Upon arriving on the planet, Vader and the Inquisitorius encountered significant resistance from the native Mon Calamari and Quarren in Dac City. Eventually, Imperial forces managed to secure the outpost. However, the natives flooded the city with a massive tidal wave, plunging Vader into the depths of the vast ocean. Sinking deep into the Great Ungeness Trench, Vader activated his lightsaber to provide illumination in the complete darkness.

Eventually Vader escaped the trench and rejoined his Imperial forces. The Ninth Sister of the Inquisitorius informed Vader that they had discovered the location of the Jedi Padawan Ferren Barr and his disciples. While en route to the Jedi's location, Vader was contacted by Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, who requested Vader to capture the King of Mon Cala. Vader entered the King's Royal Command Bunker, where he was confronted by several native soldiers. Vader used his lightsaber to clear a path to the King, whom he then captured. Barr, having escaped the Inquisitorius, confronted Vader in the Command Bunker. A duel ensued between the two. Ultimately, Vader defeated the Padawan, bringing an end to the invasion of Mon Cala.

Over the course of their careers, Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin came to understand that Vader's lightsaber was something he cared about, even observing Vader touching it without thinking during some meetings with the Emperor. When Vader asked Tarkin to hunt him, which Tarkin believed to be Vader looking for some kind of challenge, Tarkin made sure to target and steal Vader's lightsaber early into the hunt. The effort cost Tarkin six of his hunters, which he deemed a bargain for the victory; BX-series droid commando hunter Eighty-One managed to snatch the lightsaber with a cable. Tarkin wore Vader's lightsaber on his belt until Vader reclaimed it in the stormlands. Upon Vader reclaiming the blade, Tarkin compared Vader to someone returning to life.

As construction of his personal castle on Mustafar concluded, Vader later used his lightsaber in the Battle of Fortress Vader, leading Imperial forces against attacking Mustafarians. Afterward, Vader dueled the ressurected Sith Lord Darth Momin, whose spirit had helped design the fortress with the secret aim of restoring himself through a locus in the dark side. Although Momin severed one of Vader's arms, causing the mechanical appendage that held his lightsaber to fall, Vader used the Force to crush Momin before entering the portal Momin had created to venture into a metaphysical plain, intending to resurrect his wife Padmé Amidala. Although he failed in that mission, he saw a glimpse of his future lightsaber duel against former apprentice Ahsoka Tano on Malachor. After being hit by a blast of Force energy in his vision that awoke him back in the real world, Vader used the Force to retrieve his lightsaber, which he then plunged into the mound to seal off the portal that had failed to resurrect Amidala, triggering a blast of dark side lighting that raged across the landscape.

Vader employed his lightsaber during a brief duel against his former master Obi-Wan Kenobi, which concluded with Vader swiftly overpowering Kenobi, who had become less skilled after years of Force inactivity. As the Sith Lord forced Kenobi to flee, Vader used the Force to knock down a storage container filled with flammable rocks while he seized Obi-Wan. After igniting the flammable rocks with his lightsaber, Vader forces Kenobi into the flames, severely burning him while claiming that his pain had only just begun. The Sith Lord then ordered his stormtroopers to seize Kenobi, but the Hidden Path member Tala Durith arrived and re-ignited the rocks with a blaster bolt, cutting Kenobi off from Vader and his troops while she rescued the Jedi Master.

When the Third Sister spearheaded the attack on Jabiim, Kenobi discovered the Third Sister's true objective to assassinate Darth Vader. As Kenobi escaped, Vader became distracted, which allowed the Third Sister to use her lightsaber to strike at Vader. However, the Sith Lord used the Force to stop the blade. Although Vader didn't use his lightsaber, he pulled the weapon from her hands, splitting it in two and dueling her with one half. Vader quickly defeated the lone Inquisitor, stabbing her with her own lightsaber and soon revealing that the Grand Inquisitor had survived her betrayal.

After Vader tracked Kenobi to a barren moon, he ignited his lightsaber and started dueling his former master. Although Vader initially was able to overwhelm his former master, Kenobi managed to regain his strength and re-engaged Vader, heavily damaging the Sith Lord's armor and cutting open his helmet, revealing his heavily scarred face.

As a group of rebels known as the Spectres were escaping on an Imperial shuttle, Vader confronted them with his lightsaber ignited. Jedi Padawans Kanan Jarrus and Ezra Bridger activated their own lightsabers and engaged in a lightsaber duel, but they were easily overpowered. The rebels Sabine Wren and Garazeb Orrelios then threw thermal detonators onto some nearby All Terrain Defense Pods, scattering the stormtroopers and distracting Vader. Seizing their chance, Bridger and Jarrus used the Force to knock the Dark Lord of the Sith off-balance as the walkers crashed down on him. The rebels believed that Vader was dead, but he used the Force to lift the burning walkers into the air.

Under the surface of Malachor, outside the Sith Temple located there, Vader confronted Bridger as he was leaving the temple. After questioning Bridger on how he had opened the Sith holocron he was in possession of, he engaged Bridger in combat; though the young Jedi briefly held his own, he was no match for the Sith Lord, who sliced his blade through Bridger's lightsaber, destroying the weapon. As Vader prepared to finish him off, Ahsoka Tano intervened, beginning the event he had foreseen in Momin's portal.

Vader told Tano that the Emperor would show her mercy if she agreed to join the Sith in hunting down the remaining Jedi. She refused and told him that his Inquisitors had killed all of the Jedi already. Tano let Vader know that her former master could never be as vile as he is. Vader informed her that Anakin Skywalker was weak, and that he destroyed him, to which Tano vowed to avenge Skywalker's death. When Vader stated that revenge was not the Jedi way, Tano told him that she is no Jedi.

The two battled, with Tano pushing Vader back in an initial strike. During this duel, Bridger removed the Sith holocron from the obelisk in the temple with the help of Jarrus, who had just arrived in their ship, causing the temple to start to collapse in on itself. Tano and Vader continued their duel until Vader pushed Tano over the edge into a chasm below.

Vader attempted to pull the holocron back from Bridger with the Force, but Tano climbed back up and attacked him, knocking his lightsaber away and damaging his helmet. With the right side of his helmet destroyed, Vader called out Tano's name, which shocked her. Underneath the torn hole in his helmet, she saw the eye of her former master, and vowed not to leave him again. Vader hesitated before reigniting his lightsaber and telling her that she will die. Meanwhile, around them, the temple continued to close in. The two continued their lightsaber duel as the temple began to collapse. Vader did escape the Sith temple to Malachor's surface, albeit injured.

During the Battle of Scarif, Vader boarded the rebel command ship Profundity to retrieve the Death Star plans from the fleeing rebels. After boarding into a pitch-black corridor, Vader ignited the blade as he confronted a group of Rebel soldiers attempting to escape with the plans to the Tantive IV. Vader cut his way through them with terrifying ease, but his efforts ultimately proved unsuccessful, with the Tantive IV jumping to hyperspace before he could take back the plans.

Vader's lightsaber was later used when Vader's old master Obi-Wan Kenobi infiltrated the Death Star along with a smuggler and, unbeknownst to Vader, his son, Luke Skywalker. After seeing Kenobi, Vader ignited his lightsaber, and the two dueled while his son and the smuggler escaped along with Leia Organa. During their duel, Kenobi looked at Luke, lowered his defenses and allowed himself to be cut down by Vader's blade.

After failing to capture Skywalker during the Battle of Hoth, Vader set a trap for his son on the Cloud City of Bespin. He captured Han Solo and Organa to torture them, hoping to bring Skywalker to him. After Skywalker saw a vision of his friends' suffering, he rushed to Cloud City to help them, where he encountered Vader. After a long, grueling duel, the two ended up in Cloud City's center reactor shaft, where Vader used his lightsaber to cut off Skywalker's hand. Vader then revealed to Skywalker that he was his father.

After the duel on Cloud City, Vader recruited the SP-4 ISC forensics droid ZED-6-7. While in the Lars Homestead on Tatooine with ZED-6-7, Vader used his lightsaber to fight off some pirates. Later in Senator Padmé Amidala's apartment on Coruscant, Vader used his lightsaber to fight off the native Vendaxan land squid that attacked the complex and killed a number of Sabé's crew who were investigating Amidala's death.

During the Battle of Endor, Vader ignited his lightsaber to defend Darth Sidious when his son attempted to strike him down. Later in the battle, Vader ignited it again in a duel against his son. After Skywalker hid in the shadows of the throne room, Vader taunted him, stating he'd turn his sister Organa to the dark side. Skywalker attacked Vader, knocking him down and cutting off his hand. Vader's lightsaber, clutched in the severed hand, then fell into the reactor shaft of the DS-2 Death Star II Mobile Battle Station.

After the fall of the Sith at the Battle of Endor, Vader's lightsaber became an object of worship for Sith cultist called the Acolytes of the Beyond, and, on Taris, the cult obtained what they believed was the weapon, so they could destroy it and return it to Vader in death.

Technically speaking, Darth Vader's lightsaber was the first one designed for the Sith. Nevertheless, there were no initial intentions to differentiate Vader's weapon from the other lightsabers shown, aside from the black design of its hilt. The concept art for Vader's lightsaber hilt drew inspiration from George Lucas's descriptions of the weapons as cylinders adorned with jewels. In the end, the hilt that David Prowse carried in A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back was constructed from the flash attachment of a British 3-cell MPP Microflash, a flash tube attachment utilized on press cameras from the 1940s. The ridged grip was created by adhering sections of rigid plastic 'T' track, typically used for the sliding doors of display cabinets (often misidentified as wiper blades), onto the bare cylinder. The switch plate was fashioned from the LED display of a calculator from 1974. In Return Of The Jedi, the original prop went missing, and a similar 'lookalike' was fabricated by modifying a 3-cell Graflex Flash tube, similar to the one used for Luke Skywalker's first lightsaber. Some speculate that it was a stunt saber used in the first two movies, as the MPP Microflash was much harder to source than the Graflex, or possibly even one of the original Skywalker sabers modified extensively. The reflective, spinning dowel that formed the blade initially provided the lightsaber effect, giving the illusion of glowing to the camera. However, Lucas found these initial effects unsatisfactory and had the glows enhanced further through rotoscoped animation. During this stage, the decision was made to give the lightsabers different colored blades to better distinguish them, and Vader received a red blade. Although the techniques employed to create the lightsabers would evolve throughout the subsequent two films, the visual representation of Vader's lightsaber itself would remain unchanged.