Ni thin layer was deposited to assist to activate p-GaN and then was removed. The process was named Ni-assisted annealing (NA). We investigate the surface morphology and p-type contact behaviors of InGaN LED films grown on Si (1 1 1) substrates. Compared with conventional thermal annealing (TA), NA can improve the p-type contact characteristic at lower anneal temperature and a smaller specific contact resistivity (rho(c) = 6.1 x 10(-5) Omega cm(2)) employing nonalloy Pt electrode was obtained. A wet etching method using acid-hydrogen peroxide was adopted to boil films surface after activation. We found that some nano-pits appeared on surfaces while original surface step structure was still clearly visible, which shows a defect-selective etching characteristic. Otherwise, we demonstrated that the surface morphology could be affected by NA while independent to TA. Some mechanisms for experimental phenomena were also discussed in the letter. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.