<p>Image encryption is critical for maintaining the security and integrity of digital images, as well as preventing illegal access and changes. However, present encryption techniques frequently entail difficult mathematical processes, limiting their efficiency and applicability. Because of their narrow chaotic space, certain low-dimensional chaotic maps can be easily predicted, and encrypted images may be seen.This study presents a novel quantum image encryption algorithm using the hash 256 algorithm. The input image has been confused using four different chaotic maps and a conventional permutation technique, including the Arnold cat map, chaotic bakers, pixel permutation, and the proposed Arnold cat map. At last, the backward diffusion process and bit-level permutation are taken into account for the scrambled images. The effectiveness of four chaotic maps-based quantum image cryptography is assessed by examining correlation features, histogram analysis, NPCR, UACI, Entropy, and SSIM. According to this analysis, the chaotic bakers and pixel permutation maps are not as effective as the Arnold cat map. The Arnold cat map’s UACI, SSIM, and NPCR values computed from the cameraman and pepper images outperform the pixel permutation and chaotic bakers maps. Thus the proposed model performs well providing the secret key and give large key space which makes brute-force attack impractical and based on the discrete chaotic maps in basic quantum chaotic cryptosystem algorithm and improved and without losing the image information. </p>