Epitaxially grown hexagonal and rhombohedral boron nitride (h-BN 1 and r-BN 2 ) thin films are materials that have various applications in the fields of UV devices and graphene technology . Similarly, other less ordered crystalline forms of BN including turbostatic BN (t-BN) and amorphous BN (a-BN) are studied to understand film nucleation, and have potential electronic applications as dielectrics. Thin film growth of sp -hybridized boron nitride (sp 2 -BN) is typically done using chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Growth of epitaxial sp 2 -BN thin films requires high growth temperatures, above 1200 °C13-17 , which is a limiting factor for the substrates that can be used. Hitherto, substrates for epitaxially grown h-BN and r-BN phases include 3C-SiC(111), 4H-and 6H-SiC(0001) on-axis substrates and α-Al2O3(0001). These substrates resulted in epitaxially grown [0001]-oriented sp -BN films where it is challenging to distinguish between h-BN and r-BN phases. Therefore, it is of interest to study epitaxial sp -BN films grown in other crystal orientations. Growth of sp -BN films on other cuts of sapphire (Al2O3) provides a potential route to explore this possibility. These cuts include Al2O3(112 ̅ 0), Al2O3(11 ̅ 02) and Al2O3(101 ̅ 0) henceforth referred to as a-cut, r-cut and m-cuts respectively, along with the previously investigated Al2O3 (0001) c-cut substrates.