Chaotic systems are widely used in many scientific fields for their dynamic characteristics. This study proposes a new delayed coupling method, which not only disturbs the control coefficient in chaotic maps but also affects their function structure, such that using this improved method will produce chaotic maps with better effect. The numerical simulation results prove that the delayed coupling method can greatly improve the chaotic characteristics of chaotic maps. Furthermore, an image encryption algorithm based on the delayed coupling Logistic map is proposed. Several numerical simulations indicate that the image encryption algorithm has a high level of security, and can compete with other encryption algorithms.