Abstract: In order to better study the propagation characteristics of the beam in atmospheric turbulence, a simulation method of the turbulence phase screen based on the sparse spectrum model was proposed, and the gray image, structure function and beam drifting distance of the generated phase screen were analyzed. Firstly, the mathematical method was used to analyze the direction, size and amplitude of the light wave, and the sparse spectrum phase screen was obtained. Then, under the different coherence radius, it was compared with the phase screen gray image generated by the power spectrum inversion method, and the fitting degree of the structure function and the spot position under the sparse spectrum model was analyzed. The simulation and experimental test results show that the average error of the experimental structure function is 6.1%. The phase screen detail information is more abundant under the simulation method, and the root mean square error of the atmospheric turbulence spot centroid is 1.013×10^-7 m, which has the advantages of high precision, fast running speed, long simulative period, etc., and can better simulate the real atmospheric turbulence.