激光器的不稳定性是一个普遍现象，而混沌是激光器不稳定性的一个重要特例。混沌激光作为激光器输出的一种特殊形式，具有类噪声宽频谱的特性。近年来，基于混沌激光的一些应用技术相继被提出与完善。本文结合国内外研究现状，简要介绍了利用半导体激光器产生混沌激光，以及混沌激光在保密光通信、激光测距、光纤断点检测、对激光相干长度任意调控等方面的应用与研究进展。

Chaotic laser, viewed as a special form of laser diode outputs, is a general phenomenon. Chaotic laser has noise-like appearance and wide spectrum bandwidth. Recently, some novel techniques based on chaotic light have been proposed and developed. Combined with the research situation and the project team, the generation of chaotic laser utilizing semiconductor laser with optical feedback/injection is briefly introduced, and the research progresses of the chaotic laser applications are riviewed, such as the chaotic optical secure communication, chaotic laser ladar, chaotic optical time domain reflectometer, and new-type light source of arbitrary variable coherence length.