  The problem of slowing down light by orders of magnitude has been extensively
discussed in the literature. Such a possibility can be useful in a variety of
optical and microwave applications. Many qualitatively different approaches
have been explored. Here we discuss how this goal can be achieved in linear
dispersive media, such as photonic crystals. The existence of slowly
propagating electromagnetic waves in photonic crystals is quite obvious and
well known. The main problem, though, has been how to convert the input
radiation into the slow mode without loosing a significant portion of the
incident light energy to absorption, reflection, etc. We show that the
so-called frozen mode regime offers a unique solution to the above problem.
Under the frozen mode regime, the incident light enters the photonic crystal
with little reflection and, subsequently, is completely converted into the
frozen mode with huge amplitude and almost zero group velocity. The linearity
of the above effect allows to slow light regardless of its intensity. An
additional advantage of photonic crystals over other methods of slowing down
light is that photonic crystals can preserve both time and space coherence of
the input electromagnetic wave.
