We report the growth of a nanospiked, carbon thin film electrode by an inexpensive, non-catalytic plasma enhanced CVD process on Si substrates. The electron transfer kinetics for various redox probes of these carbon nanospikes (CNS) were determined and compared with glassy carbon and CNS exposed to oxygen plasma or a high temperature ammonia soak. The results indicate that CNS can be used as a practical alternative to GC for various electroanalysis applications. These electrodes also exhibited activity and stability toward the oxygen reduction reaction, suggesting there potential use as electrocatalyst supports. Finally, the ability to deposit conformal thin films of CNS on a 3-D architecture for use as an electrode was demonstrated. (C) The Author(s) 2014. Published by ECS. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 License (CC BY-NC-ND, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is not changed in any way and is properly cited. For permission for commercial reuse, please email: [email protected]. All rights reserved.