Optical techniques for monitoring acoustic waves excited in thin films or micro-structures with ultrashort laser pulses are useful for the accurate and nondestructive evaluation as well as for the characterization of material properties. The pump-probe laser-based acoustic methods generate acoustic bulk waves in a thermo-elastic way by absorbing the pump laser pulses at the surface of the thin film. The acoustic waves are partly reflected at the interface of thin film and substrate. Back at the film surface the reflected acoustic wave causes a change of the optical reflection coefficient, which is measured by the probe laser pulse. One-dimensional, thermo-elastic models are developed to investigate the laser-based excitation and propagation of the longitudinal acoustic pulses in thin aluminium films. The change of the optical reflection coefficient is governed by the temperature distribution and the mechanical strain caused by the traveling acoustic pulse. The presented comparison of the simulation results of thin aluminium films with the pump-probe-measurements allows to determine film thickness or Young's modulus. Furthermore material properties like thermal conductivity and photoacoustic properties are estimated. The thermo-elastic modeling of the two-dimensional case and the resulting new possibility to use the pump-probe technique for the nondestructive evaluation of micro-structures is discussed. Further directions of the ongoing research project are presented.