Optical Chaos Generation and Applications

This review comprehensively examines the optical chaos generation and its diverse applications, focusing on recent advancements in this field. Optical chaos, characterized by its sensitivity to initial conditions and unpredictability, has been extensively utilized in secure communication, physical random number generation, and high-precision measurement and sensing. The review explores three primary methods for generating chaotic lasers, optical feedback, optical injection, and optoelectronic feedback. It highlights the significance of bandwidth enhancement and time-delay signature suppression in improving chaos quality. Key applications include secure communication and key distribution via chaos synchronization, physical random number generation for cryptography, and chaotic lidar for centimeter-level target detection, chaotic correlation optical time-domain reflectometry for fiber fault detection, and chaotic distributed optical fiber sensing for temperature monitoring. Additionally, the review discusses the emerging role of chaotic laser in terahertz noise generation. Future challenges and opportunities are also outlined. It is hoped that this review can facilitate the development of chaos theory and inspire new application scenarios of chaotic laser.