We herein report an economical and facile technique for the synthesis of hierarchical nanostructures of Cu doped CdS nanostructures by microwave assisted solvothermal technique using a household microwave oven. We attempted to establish the effect of variation of solvents ratio on the morphological and optical properties of the obtained nanoscale structures. The field emission characteristics of the copper doped CdS nanoarchitecture have been studied and the turn on field is found to be 2.8 V/microm for an emission current density of approximately 0.1 microA/cm2. Emission current stability is determined at the preset current of approximately 1 microA and approximately 10 microA for the stable duration of approximately 4 hrs. The observed field emission results envisage the possibility of using the present emitter in the field emission sources. We believe that this is a unique report on the synthesis as well as field emission studies of copper doped CdS nanostructures. Photocatalytic dye degradation ability of the Cu doped CdS nanostructures is observed to be less than the undoped CdS counterparts.