It was awarded for the development of ultra-fast lasers that can switch on and off in mere attoseconds, or quintillionths of a second.

该奖项因开发了超快激光器而获奖，该激光器可以在短短阿秒（或十亿分之一秒）内打开和关闭。

But the speed of an electron is so fast that it could not be captured before the scientists produced experiments that showed it was possible to create a flash of light in one quintillionth of a second.

但电子的速度是如此之快，以至于在科学家进行实验之前无法捕捉到它，实验表明，有可能在十亿分之一秒内产生一道闪光。