Patent ID: 7603045

Claim:
A method for receiving an optical signal, comprising: reducing a phase modulation depth for modulation of a signal at an optical transmitter, the signal encoded with information; receiving the signal as an ingress signal at an optical receiver; splitting, by the optical receiver, the ingress signal into a first portion and second portion; inducing, by the optical receiver, a relative delay between the first portion and the second portion; optically interfering, by the optical receiver, the first and second portions to generate at least one interfered signal; monitoring, by the optical receiver, an optical power of a monitored signal at least based on the at least one interfered signal by: measuring a Direct Current (DC) voltage of the at least one interfered signal; and comparing the measured DC voltage with an average power corresponding to the at least one interfered signal, the comparison yielding a difference between the measured DC voltage and the average power; adjusting, by the optical receiver, the relative delay based on the difference; and decoding, by the optical receiver, the information encoded in the signal.