Slow-light vortices in periodic waveguides

We reveal that the reduction of the group velocity of light in periodic waveguides is generically associated with the presence of circulating energy flows or optical vortices. We show that the energy flows are gradually frozen for slow-light at the Brillouin zone edge, whereas vortices persist for slow-light states having non-vanishing phase velocity inside the Brillouin zone. We also demonstrate that the presence of vortices can be linked to the absence of slow-light at the zone edge, and the presented calculations illustrate these general results.