Kissing bond defects can occur in solid state joined metals, like friction stir welded aluminum or hollow aluminum extrusions produced by means of porthole dies, and its nondestructive detection is crucial for many structural applications. In this paper, high frequency ultrasound generated and detected by lasers is applied to detect kissing bonds in extruded aluminum parts. It is found that an echo from the kissing bond discontinuity could be detected when the system has a signal‐to‐noise ratio (based on the backwall echo) of at least 40 dB in the frequency range of a few hundred MHz.