A method is provided for identifying and isolating peptides capable of binding of inorganic materials such as silica, silver, germanium, cobalt, iron, or oxides thereof, or other materials on a nanometric scale such as carbon nanotubes, using a combinatorial phage display peptide library and a polymerase-chain reaction (PCR) step to obtain specific amino acids sequences. In the method of the invention, a combinatorial phage display library is used to isolate and select the desired binding peptides by a series of steps of target binding of phage with the nanometric material of interest, elution and purification of the bound phages, and amplification using PCR to determine the sequences of phages producing the desired binding peptides. The binding peptides of the invention are particularly advantageous in that they may be used as templates to guide the development of useful structures on a nanometric scale.