A procedure to immobilise saccharides on a gold substrate based on self-assembled monolayer (SAM) methodology associated to click chemistry is presented. Alkanethiol self-assembled on gold was obtained. The SAM was modified in order to introduce an alkyne-terminated arm which could react with azido modified saccharides through click chemistry. The substrates were characterised at each modification step by reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy and time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry. The stability of the organic arm immobilised on the gold substrate was also verified. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.