In order to increase the energy efficiency and output energy of solid lasers, the output characteristics of Nd:Ce:YAG crystal was studied, compared with simple Nd:YAG crystal. The impact on initial inverted population caused by the absorption spectrum of Nd3+ and Ce3+ was analyzed. It is found that the energy efficiency of laser crystal can be increased by doping both Nd3+ and Ce3+ in YAG crystal, which increases the output energy and lowers the threshold pump energy of lasers. With the same input voltage of 750 V, the output energy of the Nd:Ce:YAG laser and Nd: YAG laser is 651.5 mJ and 390.4 mJ, respectively, the energy efficiency is 2.31% and 1.38%, and the threshold pump energy is 10.56 mJ and 15.21 mJ. The laser slope efficiency for Nd:Ce:YAG crystal is 0.49% ,