It is necessary to evaluate the characteristics of thin coating layers nondestructively for reliable use of coated components since performances of the components with thin coating layers are critically dependent on the bonding conditions between thin layers and substrates. To evaluate bonding quality or surface material properties, in this study, we have proposed a new approach analyzing the “minimum reflection profile” that can be obtained by measuring energy of reflected Rayleigh‐like waves with variation of incidence angle from normal to beyond Rayleigh angle in a pitch‐catch immersion setup. Using the proposed method, we evaluated the bonding quality of chemical vapor deposit (CVD) diamond coating layers having different bonding conditions. In this paper, the characteristics of Rayleigh‐like waves and performances of the minimum reflection profiles were discussed.