There's nothing "special" in the way you imagine about quantum phenomena. They are complicated to describe mathematically because we are limited to a fundamentally imperfect set of symbols, but they are not complicated to obtain the requirements for.

All chemical and light-interaction processes use quantum phenomena if you dig enough into how they work, and it's especially clear on a smaller scale. If you just make something thin enough, it will start displaying quantum effects, but there is nothing that complicated about "thin".

They're not manipulating wavelengths with great complexity, they're just growing a really thin layer on their shell.