We have studied the propagation of a surface acoustic waves ( SAW), in a structure constituted by a 2D phononic film ( a few micrometers thick and having lattice constants of a few hundreds of micrometers in the two directions of the propagation plane) deposited onto a homogeneous semi- infinite substrate. First, we have calculated the dispersion relations of the acoustic modes by using a plane waves expansion method. We found that the surface branch exhibits both the folding effect and a band gap for the propagation along some particular directions. This is a very interesting result which demonstrates that the effects related to the existence of the band gap ( sound velocity dispersion, difraction, refraction, ultrasound tunneling, etc.) can all appear, even if the thickness of the phononic. lm is much less than the penetration depth of the SAW. Then, we used an all- optical technique to monitor the spectral content of the SAW propagating along the Gamma X direction in the reduced Brillouin zone. We show that a wave with frequency in the stop band, is destructively difracted after it propagates through less than ten periods. Finally, we report on measurements of the Rayleigh wave phase velocity and we show that the transit time is independent of the distance traveled inside the phononic crystal, suggesting that tunneling trough the sample is involved. (c) 2006 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.