If lightsabers are heated plasma, which gases does each lightsaber colour correspond to?

Red: Lithium. This is my favorite flame test to do for the kids. This picture:

gives you an idea. A little lithium in your Kyber crystals, and you get this:

OK, now Luke’s. This one is tougher, because in Episode 4 it’s clearly blueish:

but then he misplaces that one in Episode 5 (pesky hands getting chopped off) and replaces it with this one:

which is decidedly more green.

So what elements should we choose?

For the blue, I choose chromium:

and for the green, I choose boron:

Boron:

OK. What about the rest?

The only other color that is radically different that is featured significantly in the movies is Mace Windu’s purple:

Cesium all the way:

So there you have it, the chemistry of colorful light sabers…that is, of course, if they contain elemental pigments. If you’re allowed to use compounds the list goes on rather extensively. Also, there are other elements that can produce these colors (Sr is pretty red, Cu is pretty green, K is pretty purple) but I think these four are the closest color matches.

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