High density recording requires pole material with a large saturation magnetization and high permeability. To realize the high data rate and high frequency (in the range of 40–100 mHz) applications in thin film heads, high resistivity materials are desired. Amorphous materials such as CoZrNb, CoHfNb, etc., and crystalline materials such as FeAlN, FeN, etc., were studied for high Bsat applications. CoFeB films were rf sputter deposited on Al2O3–TiC substrates. The as-deposited Hce (easy axis coercivity), Hch (hard axis coercivity) anisotropy field Hk and magnetiostriction λs were measured to be 0.05–0.10, 0.19–0.31, 16–21 and −6.5×10−7, respectively, with a saturation magnetization of 15.4 kG. The as-deposited magnetic anistropy Hk was reduced to 2.5 Oe by vacuum annealing the wafers in a rotating external magnetic field of ∼6000 Oe at 200 °C. Reduction of Hk by RFA can be attributed to magnetic field thermally induced pair ordering. A 1 μm thick CoFeB film exhibited resistivity of 66 μΩ cm compared to 22 μΩ cm for NiFe plated films. The high resitivity helps in reducing eddy current losses which do impede the uniform reversal of magnetization in the films. The amorphous structure was observed to be stable to 250–275 °C and changes to crystalline structure above 300 °C. Details on corrosion properties and x-ray diffraction data will be presented.