The invention is embodied in a soft magnetic thin film article comprising an iron-chromium-nitrogen (Fe--Cr--N) based alloy and methods for making such article. The soft magnetic thin film article is formed using an iron-chromium-nitrogen based alloy with tantalum in one embodiment and with at least one of the elements titanium (Ti), zirconium (Zr), hafnium (Hf), vanadium (V), molybdenum (Mo), niobium (Nb) or tungsten (W) in another embodiment. The article is formed such that the alloy has a relatively high saturation magnetization (e.g., greater than approximately 15 kG) and a relatively low coercivity (e.g., less than approximately 2.0 oersteds) in an as-deposited condition or, alternatively, with a very low temperature treatment (e.g., below approximately 150.degree. C). The inventive films are suitable for use in electromagnetic devices, for example, in microtransformer cores, inductor cores and in magnetic read-write heads.