Surface photovoltage minority carrier lifetime/diffusion length analysis of copper contaminated silicon was performed. It was observed that copper and copper associated defects degrade minority carrier lifetime more in n-type than in p-type silicon. This finding is explained by analysis of copper related defect levels identified by other deep level transient spectroscopy studies. In copper contaminated p-type silicon, an optical or thermal activation procedure significantly degrades the diffusion length. A process similar to that of Fe–B in p-type silicon is proposed. The activation process dissociates the Cu–Cu pairs, a weak recombination center in p-type silicon, and the copper forms extended substitutional defects in silicon, which have much greater recombination activity. No recovery of diffusion length was observed following such an activation procedure. The difference in copper and iron diffusion length recovery properties after activation can be used to differentiate iron contamination from copper contamination.