An ultra high-powered hand held 'lightsaber' on sale to anyone with a spare A$230 (NZ$283)could land would-be Jedi Knights with a A$110,000 fine from Australian customs or severe retinal damage.



The Spyder III Pro Arctic laser is sold online from a company called Wicked Lasers in Shanghai, which boasts on its website of a massive 1 Watt of power, emitting a blue beam that is up to 4000 percent brighter than a 405nm violet laser.



"High intensity laser pointers have been known to cause effects such as temporary or permanent blindness and disorientation if a beam is pointed directly at the eyes," said an Australian Customs and Border Protection spokesperson, with a steep increase in the importing of laser pointers detected by the organisation in the past year.



Although the Wicked Lasers could not be contacted, it warns on its website that the new class 4 laser is "extremely dangerous".



"Don't let the Arctic name fool you, this laser possesses the most burning capabilities of any portable laser in existence. That's why it's also the most dangerous laser ever created," it reads.



"If this laser does what is claimed then it is very dangerous," says Tim McIntyre, a senior mathematics and physics lecturer from the University of Queensland.



According to Customs, written permission is required before importing any hand-held laser device with "an accessible emission level of greater than 1 milliwatt".



The maximum penalty for importing these goods without approval is A$110,000 or three times the value of the goods, whichever is the greater, it says, which means that anyone in Australia who purchased the laser online could run into trouble.



The regulations were brought in a few years ago after six flights into Sydney were severely disrupted following a coordinated laser attack, forcing air-traffic controllers to change the flight paths of the six aircraft.



The Australian Customs spokesperson said there had been "a marked increase in the detection of laser pointers through mail and air cargo coming into Australia", with 20,019 lasers detected for the year to 31 May 2010, compared with 12,457 during the previous year.



Specialist equipment is used to test emission outputs of laser pointers when checking incoming mail, cargo and passengers, the spokesperson said, warning that some online retailers advertised laser pointers "as being under the 1mW threshold when in fact they were many times over that limit, and therefore illegal to bring into Australia without a permit".



Laser power ranges from very weak to very strong, said McIntyre.

"Lasers in barcode readers are low power and generally not dangerous but it is possible, with the appropriate permit, to purchase much more powerful lasers for scientific purposes.



"In the laser classification scheme, class 4 is the highest. These are the most dangerous types of lasers and can very easily cause immediate and irreversible eye damage," he said.



Wicked Lasers says on its website that it was founded by a group of laser enthusiasts "who have been searching all over looking for the highest powered, highest quality, affordable laser pointers".



It also claims to be in the Guinness Book of World Records 2007 for having "the most powerful handheld laser in the world".



"We wanted to create the world's most powerful handheld laser - we succeeded and inadvertently set a world record in doing so," it says, adding that the Spyder Series was its most advanced line of handheld lasers to date.



"We still have much to prove as there is still a world of possibilities in front of us. Our quest to turn science fiction into reality has only just begun."



However the website also issues the following warning to its customers: "Extremely dangerous is an understatement to the power of 1W of laser power. It will blind permanently and instantly and set fire quickly to skin and other body parts, use with extreme caution and only when using the included eye protection."