Mn doped CuO/ZnO heterostructure exhibited significant room temperature ferromagnetism and visible light photocatalytic properties. Phase analysis for the pure, Mn and Fe doped CuO/ZnO nanocomposites evidently confirmed the formation of CuO and ZnO phases in each composite without any impurities. Based on Rietveld refinement analysis, the inclusion of Mn ions into CuO/ZnO nanocomposite decreased the unit cell volume of both oxides while Fe ions lead to lattice expansion. Mn ions induced the formation of ZnO hexagonal nanorods in CuO/ZnO nanocomposite. Nano-flakes and spherical nanoparticles shapes were seen for Fe doped CuO/ZnO nanocomposites. The characteristics IR absorption bands of CuO and ZnO overlapped together in their nanocomposites structure. From Kubelka-Munk plots, the incorporation of Mn ions enabled the ZnO band gap to absorb in the visible light region. Pure CuO/ZnO nanocomposite exhibited room temperature ferromagnetism with saturation magnetization (M-s) of 0.042 emu/g and coercivity (H-c) of 547 Oe. The ferromagnetic properties of the pure CuO/ZnO nanocomposite were greatly improved by Mn and Fe doping and the saturation magnetization extremely jumped to 0.86 and 0.85 emu/g, respectively. High photocatalytic activity, 98%, with good reusability for methyl orange (MO) degradation under visible light irradiation was achieved by 4 wt% Mn doped CuO/ZnO nanocomposite. A relation between the crystallinity, band gap and photocatalytic activity with dopant type (Mn or Fe) incorporated into CuO/ZnO nanocomposites was noticed. In contrary to Fe dopant, Mn as dopant played successful roles in improving the crystallinity, band gap and photocatalytic properties of CuO/ZnO nanocomposite. Multifunctional properties can be realized by combining different oxides in heterostructure form and using doping technique. (C) 2019 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. and The Society of Powder Technology Japan. All rights reserved.