Saturation magnetostriction measurements of magnetic thin films have been studied using a system equipped with a motor driven electromagnet and a laser displacement meter. A new method to reduce the errors caused by applied rotating magnetic field is proposed for high-sensitive and accurate measurements of saturation magnetostriction. It is shown that accurate measurements are possible for magnetic fields up to around 1 kOe, by extracting the 2nd harmonic output through Fourier analysis as a function of applied rotating magnetic field and then by taking the extrapolation of 2nd harmonic output to zero magnetic field. This method is applied to measure a saturation magnetostriction of single-crystal fcc-Co(111) film and the value of -30 x 10(-6) is obtained. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.