A novel optical arrangement to generate a laser array line source of laser-generated ultra-sound based on two-beam interference is proposed. The arrangement simplifies the adjustment of the laser array source period by changing the intersection angle of two interference beams. The per-formance of the arrangement is illustrated through measurements of the surface acoustic wave gen-erated by the nanosecond laser array line source in aluminum metal. The surface acoustic wave generated by the laser line array source has stronger directivity parallel to the direction of the line source. The intensity of the measured surface acoustic wave is higher than that generated by a laser spot source with the same incident energy. The optical arrangement generating the laser array line source will be particularly advantageous in laser-generated ultrasound systems used for chemical corrosion detection.(c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).