  The electron tunneling through a molecular junction modeled by a single site
weakly coupled to two leads is studied in the presence of a time-dependent
external field using a master equation approach. In the case of small bias
voltages and high carrier frequencies of the external field, we observe the
phenomenon of coherent destruction of tunneling, i.e. the current through the
molecular junction vanishes completely for certain parameters of the external
field. In previous studies the tunneling within isolated and open multi-site
systems was suppressed; it is shown here that the tunneling between a single
site and electronic reservoirs, i.e. the leads, can be suppressed as well. For
larger bias voltages the current does not vanish any more since further
tunneling channels participate in the electron conduction and we also observe
photon-assisted tunneling which leads to steps in the current-voltage
characteristics. The described phenomena are demonstrated not only for
monochromatic fields but also for laser pulses and therefore could be used for
ultrafast optical switching of the current through molecular junctions.
