A pulsed acoustic laser probe is used to measure vertical acoustic displacements in the near field of surface defects. A method of optically determining acoustic reflection coefficients in the time domain is presented. The spatial variation of acoustic displacements over a slot is modeled with a static theory. This theory estimates a depth of 230 &mgr;m for a 250‐&mgr;m‐deep slot. A near field image of a fatigue crack demonstrates an application of the technique.