Picosecond ultrasonics have been used to measure the sound velocity and index of refraction in a thin film of AlAs. The AlAs layer was grown by molecular-beam epitaxy on a buffer layer of GaAs which was deposited on a semi-insulating GaAs wafer. The AlAs film was capped by a thin layer of GaAs, and a very thin film of InSb. To generate a sound wave effectively a picosecond light pulse was absorbed in the InSb film. As the sound wave propagates through the microstructure it changes the optical properties in the various films, and this produces a change in the optical reflectivity, which is measured. From the round trip time of the acoustic wave we have determined the sound velocity in the AlAs film.