Spin precession was nonthermally induced by an ultrashort laser pulse in orthoferrite DyFeO3 with a pump-probe technique. Both circularly and linearly polarized pulses led to spin precessions; these phenomena are interpreted as the inverse Faraday ef
fect and the inverse Cotton-Mouton effect, respectively. For both cases, the same mode of spin precession was excited; the precession frequencies and polarization were the same, but the phases of oscillations were different. We have shown theoretically and experimentally that the analysis of phases can distinguish between these two mechanisms. We have demonstrated experimentally that in the visible region, the inverse Faraday effect was dominant, whereas the inverse Cotton-Mouton effect became relatively prominent in the near-infrared region.
