The properties of several solid active material for solar pumped lasers were studied. We used Matlab software to process solar spectrum with cubic spline interpolation. A local discrete model of solar spectrum was set up. With this model, we calculated the percentage of the solar energy which can be absorbed by different laser material such as Ruby, Nd∶YAG, Yb∶YAG, Nd∶YVO4, Cr∶Nd∶GSGG, Nd3+-doped glass ceramic and Yb3+-doped silica fiber are 24.51%, 15.98%, 2.35%, 6.46%, 43.91%, 15.98%, 7.63% respectively. Then in a assumed condition, we calculated the threshold of pumped power density of each active medium. Taking the thermal property of each medium into consideration, we chose Nd∶YAG, Nd3+-doped glass ceramic and Cr∶Nd∶GSGG as the most suitable medium with high couple efficiency, low threshold and good thermal property for solar-pumped solid state laser.