Optical phase-modulation technique is a very powerful tool used in a wide variety of high performance photonic systems. Fiber-optic sensors and gyroscopes, integrated-optics sensors, or high-performance photonic integrated circuits are some examples of photonic systems where the optical phase-modulation technique can be efficiently applied. In time, such a photonic system can be integrated as the core part of some specific applications like biosensors, 5G advanced optical communication devices, gyroscopes, or high-performance computation devices. In this work, the main optical phase-modulation techniques are analyzed. Also, a study of the most significant applications of this technique is made, relating it to the most appropriate type in each case.